Sep 22, 2020 City Council on 2020-09-22 2:00 PM

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, September 22, 2020. It is 2.09 p.m. and we'll start moving down through our agenda. We do have a quorum, so I'll call this meeting to order. Our first item on the work session is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Do we have any callers waiting for citizen comments on consent agenda items? No. Okay. Yeah, we don't have any, but we do have, we've received comments using our online form for the following consent agenda items, and I will just go down through and read these real quickly. And they will be for consent agenda item on our special call meeting, so that would be consent agenda item 1A, ID 20-1916. We had one, we had zero, four, and one against on our online form. Consent agenda item B, ID 20-1735. We had one in support and zero against. For agenda item C is ID 20-1801, one in support, zero against, ID 20-1802, one in support, zero against, ID, agenda item 1E is ID 20-1803, is one in support, zero against. For agenda item 1F, ID 20-1804 is one in support, zero against. I think we have one of these for each one of the consent agenda items, so I'm sorry, just bear with me. I appreciate your patience. Agenda item 1G is ID 20-1805 is one, four in support and zero against, ID 1H is ID 20-1806, one in support, zero against. Agenda item 1I, ID 20-1807 is one in support, zero against. Agenda item 1J, ID 20-1808, one in support, zero against. Agenda item 1K, ID 20-1810, one in support, zero against, ID, excuse me, agenda item 1L, ID 20-1811, one in favor or support, zero against. Agenda item 1N, ID 20-1736, one in support, zero against. Agenda item 1W, ID 20-1836 is one in support, zero against, agenda item 1X, ID 20-1837, one in support, zero against. Agenda item 1Y, ID 20-1838 is one in support, zero against. Agenda item 1Z is ID 20-1839, one in support, zero against. Agenda item AC is ID 20-1894 is one in support, zero against. Agenda item AD, 1AD, ID 20-1895, one in support, zero against. And then agenda item 1AE is ID 20-601 with one in support and zero against. So those are the public comments, I guess, on the consent agenda item. We don't have any callers waiting, so that concludes that particular agenda item, Work Session 1. We'll go to Work Session agenda item 2, request for clarification of agenda items listed on this agenda. Council Member Meltzer? - Yeah, I'd like to pull out AF and AH for separate vote and recusal. - Okay, AF? - AF and AH. - Okay, no presentations on those? - No. - Okay, Council Member Davis? - If I could just do the same for AG, kind of round out that section of the agenda. - Okay, so is that same reason, recusal? - Correct. - Okay. - Okay, Council Member Armitage? - See, I'm going to be recusing myself for those same two items that Council Member Meltzer is recusing himself. So I believe that is- - Council Member Armitage, I can barely hear you. - Oh, really? Is this better? - Yeah. Yeah, you might just speak up just a little more volume. - Okay. So I'm going to be recusing myself for the same two items that Council Member Meltzer is recusing himself. And then I want to pull K only because, which is for the contingency funds for our Daily Bread. I had made a request for contingency funds for Monsignor King. But now that they have merged together, so our Daily Bread would be the entity to donate that to, and I'm very happy to do that. So I believe that staff is already aware of this. So I had originally planned on donating 850 of my contingency funds to our Daily Bread. The other half is going to DMACC, which is another item. However, and I'm letting staff know this right now, I want to actually split that 850 in half. So we're going to go to Solutions, we got an email just a little while ago from Solutions about some financial problems that they'll be having. So I want 425 of this to go to our Daily Bread, 425 to our Daily Bread, if staff could change that. So just to pull that in and add an additional 425 to our Daily Bread, that would be great. - Okay. So, Mack, are you the City Attorney during this meeting today? - I am. - Okay. No issues with that? It looks like it's just adding some additional same items or same type of item to the ordinance, just amending it. Is that correct? - That's fine. Yes. It will be appropriate. - Okay. So we'll just pull that. No presentation. Just make sure that the ordinance reflects that Councilmember Armitage's wishes are in adding those. Okay. I appreciate that. All right. And any, yes, Councilmember Briggs? On the parks items AC and AD, there was not an image of what the new playgrounds are going to look like. Has that been decided yet? - Mayor, Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation, I do have a short PowerPoint I could show you either now or this evening if you'd like on what those images look like. We have identified a design and color. - Go ahead, Councilmember Briggs. - Yeah. Now would be great. I don't really intend to pull these items for a separate vote. I'm just curious if we had images so the public could be aware of what they look like. - Sure. - Is there also a way, Gary, that I guess since the items are already on the agenda, we can't really add it to the backup, but if we're somewhere we're able to post that as well, that'd be great. - We can do that. - Okay. Where is it? Chris? - Oh, yes. - Oh, I'm sorry, different person. Sorry. - Okay. Yeah. Yeah. - It's not coming up. Oh, here it is. It's over here. It's off the screen. That's why. Oh, it's the wrong one. There we go. Okay, sorry about that. Can everybody see the presentation? - Yes. - Okay, perfect. So just as an intro, we've gone through an inventory to all our playgrounds to identify when they were installed and when they need to be replaced and what that replacement cost will be based off of the year that it will be replaced. Typically a life span of a playground is 15 years. That also depends on vandalism, if it's in shade or if it's in sun, there's other impacts that will frequent that 15 years. So you can see the items in blue, we've already replaced and the intention is not for you to be able to read this. It's kind of small, but the items in red are playgrounds that need to be replaced that are exceeding their 15 year lifespan. The ones in green are the ones that are on schedule and then the ones in orange are the items that our funding has been specifically allocated for those play structures. So that just gives you a general idea of how we approach our playground replacement. And that can change on a year to year basis as we need to as well. But from a bowling green, kind of sticking with the green color with bowling green, we do have some minor shade on that. It is located next to a fairly large sized tree. So this will be replaced. The playground structure there right now is in pretty poor shape. It's probably one of the two worst ones that we have right now. It's not that it's dangerous by any means, but it's just, it's seen better days. The funding for that is 915, 916 funding. It's about $131,000 to replace that. We are going to be coming back to you in the future for some design, for some trail improvements over there to put some additional concrete trail in and as well to eventually make some accessible gardens for people that may be in a wheelchair or have some physical challenges that can't get out through the grass. So that's a future project. And then McKenna Park, this is a fairly large play structure. The one that exists right now is fairly large in itself as well. We do have some ADA accessible amenities. We do have some chairs. It's fully accessible from a wheelchair perspective. We do have shade structures in here. That's been a big request from both park board, the residents and council. We have some additional swings, two slides and a fairly large play area for kids in both age ranges, two to five and five to 12. When we had our public meeting for that neighborhood, they requested some features for the younger kids as well. So we made sure we covered that. The existing playground really isn't designed for the two to five age group. So there's a lot of play amenities here. This will be moved a little bit further east off Thomas adjacent to our future parking lot is going to be once that's rebuilt since the old one was removed from the Bonnie Bray around about, but we anticipate both of these playgrounds being installed in February of 2020 by February of 2020. Okay. Council member Armatran and council member Briggs. So can you speak to how somebody in a wheelchair or parents with a stroller to get from the parking lot to the, uh, the play structures and thank you for, uh, you know, all the, the attention and the mindfulness on, uh, ADA accessibility. It's just wondering, it just drew, drew a Huffman's also on the line too. This is one of his projects, but we, we are planning a trail around the entire perimeter of the park. Uh, so there'll be a connection from the parking lot to the play structure itself. So perimeter, so it'll, we'll be going around. Will there be any kind of a straight line through, uh, a shorter route or there's, there's a direct route to the play structure, but there's also a perimeter route around the park as well as the place itself. Okay. Got it. Okay. So direct line to the play structure and the perimeter around the park. Excellent. Thanks. Council member Briggs. Yeah. Thank you, Gary. That was a really nice to see. So just two clarifying questions, um, on McKenna said there's two structures now and there's going to be replaced with at least two or more. It looked like. Yeah. The overall square footage is, is a little bit larger, uh, plus you have that slide. There's two slides. So there's more play features than there are right now. Um, plus there's more shade. Awesome. Thank you. And then green, um, that's the park that I took my older kids to. So it's definitely, um, seen it's time here. You mentioned the tree and I did see some comments from the neighborhood that they were worried the tree was coming down. Um, can you confirm that the tree is going to stay and the structure will just be a fit under it or next to it? Yeah. So we had a survey crew out there just doing some surveying anticipation of the future master plan for that park and I think people were concerned that that was for trees, tree removal. There was no intention to be removing trees at any point. So it'll be working around that tree and using that for shade for the playground itself. Perfect. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Let's see. Councilmember Barmiter. So you have a question about Bowling Green, if I put that in with the McKenna Park question. Um, so I noticed that, so that the shade structures at Bowling Green are smaller than the ones that McKenna Park is that, uh, you know, do the residents not request as much shade? I know that that area can get a lot of sun to, is it, if you could speak to that. Gary, would you like me to answer that? Go ahead, Drew. Uh, Councilmember Margaret, this is Assistant Director Grews up in proportion, right? Uh, what we did is we worked with the, the land or the playground company. And when we did that, we looked at the different sun angles. And so we're using the trees for the majority of the shade, and then we added the alternate shade on the structure to help shade that playground. So really, you know, we went out there in the heat of the summer back in, you know, July and August and really looked where that, where the trees shade the existing playground. And that existing playground footprint will be actually expanded and then really encompass the amount of shade we get there in the summer from those, those nice live oaks. Excellent. And thank you. That makes a lot of sense because, you know, the trees are the best shade and those shade structures are just to make up for where there aren't trees. So that is really good to know. That was strategic. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Anybody else? Mayor? Mayor, I was going to clarify an answer I gave earlier related to council member Armander's request on item K. Yes. So it's clear that she could add the 425 for our daily bread. However, the solutions is not on the agenda today. So that cannot be included. I just want to clarify that that would not be. Okay. Of course. Yes. Yeah, that would be for a later date. I just wanted to mention that that's why I wanted it to be, that that's why it was 425 instead of 850, just to spread it out. But yeah, that'll come forward in a later date. Thanks. Okay. Great. I appreciate that clarification. Thank you. Deputy City Attorney. Any other? Mayor Pro Tem. Just to follow up on that, I was aware of staff mentioning the timing that we needed to submit those. So I guess I want to hear from whoever would manages that timing on our contingency funds, because I know there was a hard deadline for the budget. Just want to make sure we're all on the same page. Okay. Sure I can, I can address that. So the council contingency funds that are on the agenda today are from this current fiscal year. So we were asking for the deadline by today, however, staff did make an error and it is our fault. We forgot to include council member armatures requests for the junction, which is MKOC and our daily bread now as well as DMACC. So we inadvertently left those off. We can add two for the junction since another council member had requested that for the contingency funds, but we did not have an item on for the solutions of North Texas. This is the first that we're hearing of that right now. So we could ask finance if it's possible to transfer that money into the next fiscal year if we add that solutions of North Texas agreement to the 106 council agenda. I just wanted to clarify that. Okay. Any other Sarah, because I remember getting that message, I think a while back, I can't recall if I have any contingency funds left available. Do y'all have that if I do, I would like to add them to the our daily bread, the junction as well. I'm not sure that I do, but I want to do that as well since, since it seems like we're okay to do that because it's already posted on the den, we're just changing the amount. Is that correct? Mr. Deputy city attorney. That's absolutely correct. But just to clarify what was just said, so we're all on the same page. My understanding is if it's not used this fiscal year, then next fiscal year's monies would be used after the new fiscal year starts. Yeah, I don't. My understanding is those monies don't necessarily roll over. They just sort of flow down to the reserve to the to the fund balance. Is that correct, Mr. City Manager? That's correct. Anything that's not spent will drop down and we can we can certainly move that forward this next year. That's your wish. Okay. And Mr. Mayor, this is Stuart bird's eye assistant to the city manager, and you have not expensed any of your council contingency funds. So we can also add that when the motion is made to our daily bread later this. That's wonderful. Yes, that'd be good. Thank you. I apologize for that. Anyone else on this? So just to just to clarify, we're able to make changes to the amount of that particular agenda item, just not to the the the destination of those funds. In other words, it has to remain our daily bread slash the junction. Any funds that have not been accounted for as of the close of council today would therefore be just flow down into the general fund, the fund balance, and then council can take up any different policy issues they want regarding the new content contingency fund rules for the next fiscal budget. Is that correct? Okay, I'm seeing heads shaking and nodding. But okay. All right. Is that correct, Todd? That is correct. Okay. All right. Fantastic. Any other clarifications of agenda items listed on this agenda? I will just to give the council heads up Mayor Pro Tem will take the helm about six. I've got something I got to take care of till about 645. So I'll just step out and then step back in and and just wanted to give you all a heads up on that. All right, we'll go on then to our work session reports. Work session three a is receive report hold the discussion and give staff direction regarding an agreement with the Parks Foundation, the city of didn't Texas to allow the Parks Foundation to raise funds on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department. Mayor City Council Gary pack and director Parks and Recreation. This will be the third year that we've worked through this specific process. The first two years we've gone through and presented this contract for consideration and a summary of Park Foundation activities from that year as well as the plan for the upcoming year that was typically done during that budget presentation with COVID this year our budget presentation presentations were a little amended. So we're doing this a little bit after those. But the process in your budget or in your agenda, there is an annual plan as an exhibit and then a draft marked up version for the agreement for next fiscal year with the Park Foundation, the proposed amount is the same as the the prior prior few years at 76,500. So if you guys are okay with the direction we're heading, we'll come back to you in October with a future agenda item for ratification of that agreement. But at this point in time, I'd like to turn it over to Brooke Moore and Tim Smith to provide a brief presentation on the Denton Parks Foundation. Fabulous, thank you all so much for having me here today, I really appreciate it. So we're gonna go back. So in 2019, August 2019, the Denton Parks Foundation board had a retreat and we developed a new mission and vision statement here. The new mission statement was created to ensure that our organization continue to grow and effectively serve the Denton Parks and Recreation Department for decades to come. It's our vision to unite people over parks and play through investments, advocacy and volunteerism. So today, that's how I divided up our presentation. We invested over $40,000 in parks and people this last year between September and today resulted in 11 dog park benches, one dog park shade structure, a nonprofit grant to Denton County Friends of the Family and 81 Parks and Rec scholarships. Please note that the 81 scholarships, we have already invested in it, however, not all of them were able to be used due to COVID, but those individuals do have this dollar amount in their account to be used once those services start back up again. We also invested in Eureka too and the slide and spinner replacements as well as vandalism cleanup and resurfacing. Now how did we do this? We did this through grants, events, sponsors, campaigns and donors, small little events like Pints for Paws, Yappie Hour and then larger events where we really started dedicating time to building our donor base, like Gallantine's Day and Home Hop Egg Drop. It wasn't exactly what we had planned, but we pivoted and we made it work for us. And then of course, North Texas Giving Day. Tim here will kind of explain because we're going to be honest with you guys. We recognize that your investment of $76,500 and the return on the investment of $40,599.54 was at a loss and we recognize that. And Tim will answer a little bit, but essentially COVID. Here we go. Thank you, Brooke. Afternoon, counselors. I'm Tim Smith, president of Denton Parks Foundation. As Brooke just previously mentioned, you do see in front of you the numbers for our fundraising and these are specifically referring to the CTFR, which is City Total Funds Raised. So this is money that has been raised by our organization and has been given back to the city, reinvested in a number of different ways, whether it's for purchasing actual equipment or paying for scholarships, a number of different areas and avenues that Brooke has already covered. As you see there, just for some brief history, you see that 2015, we had almost a million dollars raised for City Total Funds Raised for the city of Denton. That number is so high. That was the year that we were doing our primary fundraising for Eureka 2 and the complete community rebuild that occurred in 2016. So after 2016, 2017, we had what we would consider a pretty average year with an executive director, which of course is being funded and supported by the city of Denton's MOU that we have with the Denton Parks Foundation. At the end of 2017, about October or so of that year, as you guys probably remember, leading into the beginning of 2018, was when there was an audit that had been launched by city council into the relationship between the City of Denton Parks and Rec Department and the Denton Parks Foundation. As was noted, as that audit had been completed, that there was no impropriety, but more of that there had been gray lines that a more definitive contract needed to be signed with organizations like ours that are outside of the City of Denton, but still exist for the support of the City of Denton. So that is when the MOU had been done. Whenever we went through at the end of last year, making the same presentation we did last year to many of you city councilors, we went through and showed you our projections of what we had thought we would fundraise during that year. Brooke did a phenomenal job of aligning some really awesome events that we thought we were going to as easily going to let us reach our goal as COVID started hitting in full swing right after end of February, beginning of March, our two big events that we had planned for fundraising had to be canceled, rescheduled, and maybe even converted as the home hop egg drop as Brooke mentioned previously. So yes, we have underperformed this year, I think for a very good reason, but not big believer in making excuses, but I can tell you that the red trend line you do see there on your screen is pointing upwards. We know that with the things that we've done within internal exchanges as an organization, we begin to pivot to find opportunities for us to fundraise during this virtual time, including the endowment fund that we had discussed last MOU, and establishing that coming January 1st for us to use towards scholarships, towards parks and rec department organizations and events that will happen during the summertime. So with that, I'll stand for any questions on my part before I hand it back over to Brooke. Okay. All right, if we could pull the presentation down. If that's okay, I'm hearing from Gary that we'll continue on and we'll answer. We'll go ahead. All right, we'll go ahead. Sorry about that Mayor Watson. Oh, okay. So we're answering questions? Are we moving? We should probably go through and complete the presentation first. I got a little, I was a little premature with that presentation and then Brooke and I will hop back and forth in the seat answering questions there. Fantastic. Okay. That sounds good. All right. So as we move forward, you're going to notice that we still need scholarships and the impact that we're going to have is even greater. As we move forward, we have over $25,000 in scholarship funding available right now. We'd half least spend it on Denton residents who could not otherwise afford recreational activities, including afterschool care, kids' day off, sports, dance, and of course camp. Here's a great quote from somebody who we were able to impact. Just keep in mind, it is individuals and families that we are making a difference. There we go. So if we weren't investing, what else were we doing? We were advocating for parks. We're being a voice for parks and advocating to help make parks better for all. We did this, first and foremost, when we look back at how we can make parks better for all, we started with us and ensuring our organization is one that everyone can see themselves in. Working with board diversity with strategic efforts being made to recruit and then develop a marketing that is for all audiences so everyone, again, can see themselves in our work and then tracking scholarships to better understand the families and children that we're serving and filling in those gaps where they exist. And then of course, we're promoting the 10-minute walk to a safe and quality park, encouraging people to use their outside voice for the bond election and community input meetings. We did two Parks and Play campaigns. One was iHeart Parks in February, every day in May, and then upcoming in October, we expect to do Parktober in October. So look forward to me being at the parks every day in October and I hope you will join me. And then of course, lastly, providing COVID updates and tips on all things parks related. So one of the areas of impact for Denton Parks Foundation is that we provide a 501(c)(3) tax exempt status to services and community groups as fiscal sponsors and partners, resulting in associations and communities being able to make parks and public space projects happen in the city of Denton. Some of these up here are major partnerships that we have been fiscal sponsors for, including Juneteenth celebration. They promote, educate, and celebrate the history of Juneteenth as well as work to build community unity. Similarly, Cinco de Mayo provides a spirit of celebration and friendship by sharing and showcasing rich traditions, entertainment, art exhibits, and food for Hispanic culture in a free family event. Both of these groups actually conduct their events in city parks and bring visitors to our great outdoors. And then finally, the last year, the Senior Center Advisory Council, which is a group of seniors who are dedicated to helping make parks better, but also the senior center even better. They have raised thousands of dollars to help build a new senior center whenever that does arrive and we are holding onto those funds for them. And then finally, the Denton Area Tennis Association. They have a mission to promote the game of tennis in the city of Denton and host educational tournaments, events, and encourage playing tennis in our community, something they've been able to do utilizing our 501c3 status is do fundraising events as well as writing grants on behalf of us. And then lastly, volunteerism. We finally like to engage people over parks and play through volunteerism. This year, we engaged over 50 people. That's not a lot, but when you really consider how much time we had to play with people, I'm going to call that a win. We pick up trash weekly on 10 on Tuesday. If you don't join me personally, I hope you do go out to the parks and still pick up the trash. We do quarterly dig in projects. And as we move forward, we certainly will be collaborating more with Keep Denton Beautiful and the staff that have recently been added to Depard to help make sure that we still continue to engage people into our parks. So each year we continue to work on our three main goals and objectives to invest resources and Depard to win the NRPA and Trapp's gold medals to advocate 100% accessibility to equitable D parks and facilities and then provide access to all individuals who qualify for recreational scholarships in 2020 and 2021 honestly is not going to look that different. We're still going to be reaching for those goals and we're still going to be doing it just with a pivot, so to say. So here we go. Looking towards 2020 and 2021. We are hoping to raise $85,000 now if you compare that to last year, this is probably a little more realistic budget looking forward and we did take into account COVID with this. Here are a few ways that we'll continue to be able to raise these funds. One will be the canine campaign. We will do virtual and socially distant events. We are actually currently planning on an event October 25th, so mark your calendars for a barktober. It's going to be paint your pet with painted with a twist and benefiting the Denton dog parks. We have also put a great deal of effort and time into return to recess, which is a quarterly adult recess in the park for fun food and drinks because who says adults can't have fun and play you know our fingers are twirly crossed that we'll be able to host at least one of these in 2021 and if not, we're just going to have to find a new and creative way to be able to serve this audience. And then Galentine's it's one of our signature events and that is not going to change. We will continue to do Galentine's in 2021. Again it just is going to look differently and we're looking at virtual options. We also are working on Park Play Library, which is an equipment sharing program to unite people over parks and play and to extend the services that D part is able to currently provide. Just imagine with me going to North Lakes Rec Center and picking up some disc golf discs and then hitting up the park right there and then returning them afterwards. This could just be one of few one of many different opportunities for people to pick up different outdoor activities and so we're looking at grant funding for that right now. The adult egg scramble. I truly hope this happens in 2021 not because I don't want to be the Easter bunny, but kind of I don't really want to do the Easter bunny. But either way, we're going to have a lot of fun and we're going to make sure that eggs are spread through Denton and then Parks are Art. It's a designated donor fund for art in our parks. We're starting with the Denton Women's Interracial Fellowship and we are in the process of writing grants and fundraising on behalf of that. And then finally, this great picture of Gary and his pups at Splish Splash Doggy Dash. By now we would be recouping from the event, however, due to COVID we aren't having it this year. So fingers crossed it'll happen in 2021. So none of this is possible without you all. As Tim mentioned, you help pay the salary so that 100% of the donations we receive go back into the city and support our mission. So together we can truly do, together we can truly help meet the needs and expectations of our community and create a quality of life for all Denton residents, but we can't do it without you. Thank you all for a wonderful year. And we're open to questions. All right. Let me, if we could pull the, there you go, thank you. Questions? Councilmember Armitter. So I want to thank the Parks Foundation so much and to let you know before I ask my question that I don't see any need to apologize for, you know, fundraising beneath expectations. I'm glad you don't either. If anything, I, you know, I believe that the city, you know, we depend on you and you were created to fill a gap because the city historically, you know, was not meeting the needs of low income people as I see it in terms of our, what the wonderful things our Parks and Rec Center provides, the wonderful things our staff provides. So you all have made that possible over the years. And my gratitude to you is so immense. So if anything, you know, I feel that we have just extended gratitude. I do anyway, that, you know, even under COVID, you know, you were able to do this. For me, you know, this is an essential public need and so I am really grateful. Even for you is I'm wondering, you know, if you're aware that as far as our camps go, our summer camps go, and I'm so grateful for the scholarships you provide, I was wondering if you're aware that even some of our city staff can't afford to have their kids in summer camps and if any, if, you know, if you could just kind of speak to what the kind of cut off is for income to qualify for summer camp scholarship and, you know, if there's anything that we in the city can do to meet some of that need along with you. And again, I'm coming at this from the perspective that I see what you're doing is not a little something extra, but as helping to meet an essential public need. Sure, absolutely. I think the place that council can help out the most with would truly be letting people know when they exist when they are available. I think that it's the best kept secret in town is that we have this available to families. I think in the past we probably didn't promote it out of fear of not being able to meet everybody's needs. That is not the case right now, not that we could not, but we always want to meet everybody's needs. And we don't know that unless we aren't able to meet people's needs, right, unless we know the real gap that exists. So anybody can go to a didn't parks and rec facility. So a rec center and up fly, it is based on income. And if you're looking at children having access to scholarships, because even adults could qualify for one as well, say a senior or even somebody who just really needs that exercise at North Lakes, and they want to be able to qualify for a rec pass, they certainly could as well. But children, it's going to be based on if you meet the standards for free or reduced lunch. And can I ask a follow up question? Of course. So is, so our, do the, our rec center staff know to mention, you know, to mention this is there is that material kind of available laid out on the desk and picturing, you know, the last time I went to a rec center before COVID, you know, there's all the all these brochures brochures at all our rec centers out on the desk with all these wonderful things that are happening. So is this something that I would say we don't currently have it out at the, I mean, obviously not right now. But even pre COVID, I don't necessarily think that we spent a lot of time marketing. Moving forward, the Dent Parks Foundation is looking to collaborate with depart on marketing efforts to make sure we're reaching not just the people who are showing up already at North Lakes and MLK and Dina, but also those who, you know, maybe they just aren't even completely aware of the service available to them. So really it's a marketing thing and that, and that's going to come from our partnership to reach more people. Thank you so much. And let us know how we can help you with that yet, because I know they're even there, you know, sometimes kids will roll up there, you know, and without a membership and just to be paid, I bet it would be really excited to hear just bring this, you know, bring this home to your folks and they can apply. So thank you so much. You got it. Council Member Briggs. Are we looking to give direction today or was this just an update? It says hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding an agreement with the Parks Foundation. Okay, so I'm really good with this, with the agreement with Parks Foundation and I want to thank you, Brooke, for your passion for our city and for parks. It definitely shows through when you're out in the community. Thank you. All right. Council Member Meltzer. Your creativity and inventiveness is very evident and it's still like a miss is a miss and everything is missed. I mean, the city missed, most businesses have missed, everything is missed, but I think a responsible question would be what are the bold strokes of how you, and maybe you've already kind of covered it, but if you don't mind hitting the high spots again, just what are the bold strokes of what you will do differently? Because we don't know how long we're going to be in the circumstance that we're in. So yeah, how will you manage differently in the year ahead, given what you've learned, you know, managing through as inventively and resourcefully as you have, is there a kind of a course correction that you will do to adapt? Okay, we'll let Tim jump on that one second. Council Member Meltzer, just one of the things I've always believed, it's something that's been instilled in me through my entire life, has been every obstacle is an opportunity. And so we took this time as an organization and from my position on leadership and our executive committee, we saw this as a time to maybe work internally a little bit more on the Parks Foundation. And so we restructured a couple of our committees internally and gave a little bit more organization and direction of how we are going to operate as an organization moving forward. We have the last three months we formed three internal committees, one's called the internal committee, one's called the externals committee, and one's called the governance committee. But these three committees are now meeting on a semi-monthly basis and putting some plans together for not just the events that Brooke's already mentioned, but also some of the new ideas that we can really bring to the organization to do fundraising in a virtual time. Now, this may not sound like groundbreaking stuff, but with bringing Brooke on, that was really our, what we felt like at a time outside of COVID, it's a great, we got a fundraiser, she's going to do an awesome job, she's going to put on some great events, we'll step in and help volunteer, but when it comes down to it, it's going to take more than just Brooke doing it. And so we as a board have recommitted to assisting Brooke, being able to identify not only just new events, but now being able to give her specific time in which there's a lot of hands working on these events. Yes, in relation to your question about the bold strokes, I think Brooke's already hit on those high points. That's every single one of the pieces at the very end of that presentation. Those are all events that we have a plan A if we can do it in person, and a plan B if we cannot. So what do we do virtually to still hold the event, to fundraise using that event, and we feel like we've got a pretty good game plan to make sure that whatever life throws us, we'll be able to handle. So hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Anybody else? Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, I just want to pick up where my colleagues left off and say that is the comforting factor for me is the steps that were taken versus kind of just saying, hey, we're taking the brunt of this and we'll reconvene or rework it for next year. They did take kind of some action in the midst to try to make things work, to say, hey, we've invested in all these eggs. How do we then get those out the door and make that happen? And that event alone was amazing. And so I appreciate you and you incorporated your family into that, and then the social media push that comes from it just all the way around good exposure for the city. But that going forward, I want to pick up where Tim left off. So one, I support the agreement just to get that on the record. But two, I think I want to accept Tim's advice that they talked about in their board and accept that as a council and say, we would like to come along or specifically, I would like to come along with you. So on those events, if there's ways that we can plug in or you can send invitations that then we can actively engage those that support me or that I have a relationship with that may accept an invitation personally, please just engage us as a council, me specifically to make sure we help you be successful. I think it's important for us to get active in that process as well. And so it's interesting to hear that you have that conversation internally. I share that commitment from a partnership perspective. Thank you very much. That means a lot. Because really what Tim is saying is so true. I can't do it by one person. And so we really truly have spent the last few months really getting our management and people down. So thank you for offering up extra support, we appreciate it. Okay. Councilmember Armitter. I just wanted to say as far as direction, it was probably obvious in my previous words, but I strongly support this. Please let us know how we can continue to help you help us, because you help us. You feel a huge public need and I thank you so much. Thank you. Any objection? Councilmember Mouser. Okay. I mean, just because I hadn't actually said it, I support the agreement. And yeah, Brooke, whenever, whenever, wherever, please add me to your team. Thank you. Fantastic. I don't hear any real objections to moving forward with the agreement as presented. So that's the direction of council. We've got our next agenda item is the discussion direction regarding the disaster declaration. That might take a little bit possibly. So let's just take a real quick five or eight minute break and we'll come back and pick that up and around a little bit after three. Thank you. Oh, wait, there's one. Okay. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council at 3.03 p.m. We'll reconvene our meeting. We are on work session item 3B, which is ID 20-1495. Receive a report. Hold a discussion to give staff direction regarding the disaster declaration and ninth order of council of the City of Denton issued August 25th, 2020 approved by ordinance 20-1597. Good afternoon, mayor, city council, Sara Kickler, chief of staff. So this item is to seek council's direction on the current disaster declaration and order. There is an item underneath individual consideration later on the agenda. So staff is seeking further directions to prepare that item for council's considered consideration. So just a little bit of background. We have had a disaster declaration and order in place since March 13th when the COVID pandemic began. Since then we've made a number of revisions to that declaration and order by council. Currently we are on the ninth order of council and that is in effect until September 30th. So right now for the disaster declaration, it is in effect until September 30th. And really there's two key purposes for the state of disaster declaration. It is the basis to have an order of council if council wishes to have one. But also as important, it is the prerequisite in order to receive some state and federal disaster funding. So it is important that that disaster declaration continues in order for us to be eligible for state and federal funding. And this includes the CARES Act funding. That is a requirement that there is a local disaster declaration for that CARES funding. As far as the order of council, that has a number of items contained within it that provide some authority in regards to disaster operations under a disaster. So they're outlined here on the screen, some of the key provisions that remain in effect. And I'm going to go over those on the next slide, so I'm not going to go into detail on these sub-bullet points right now. But in addition to the things that are still in effect, there's a number of other items that are still in the order that are no longer in effect and are just carried over for historical reference. So that order has continued to grow in length, although not all items are no longer necessary. >> So Sarah, real quick, if you could maybe, just because I think I have to be seen when I'm talking, pull the presentation down just for just a moment. On those items that are no longer in effect in the order, what's the rationale for them continuing to stay in the order? And is there a way to flag them somehow? Because if they're no longer in effect, so help me understand that. >> To be honest, I think it's just as we were continuing to extend, doing the declarations almost every couple of weeks, we left those items in. They were just kind of a historical reference point. They had, I think some of them, you know, for the spending authority and so forth. So they're no longer necessary. They've just been carried over as we've continued to carry and extend the order forward. >> Is there a way to somehow put some language around them just to say, because I know when I've read it before, as we've renewed them before, I was like, wait a minute, this is still in here. Why is this still in here when it's no longer effective? So Mr. City Attorney, is there something we can do? I mean, does it need to be cleaned up or, oh, go ahead, go ahead, Sarah. >> All right, Mayor Watts, we have a couple options to present to you, which will clear up those items that are no longer necessary. >> Okay, sorry. Yeah, I should have just said, okay, we're gonna get that to a later presentation, Mayor, so hold tight. >> That's okay. >> Okay, all right, sorry about that. >> That's all right. I guess I'm gonna reshare the presentation. So for the main items that are currently still in effect for the order, one of them is the health and safety policy requirement for businesses, so this requires that businesses adopt a health and safety policy and post that at their business, including requiring face coverings for employees and guests. I do want to point out that the governor's order is still in effect GA 28 in regards to requiring individuals to wear face coverings in public, so if this item is really a policy decision for council, if you wish to continue this local requirement for businesses to have a health and safety policy. Another main point of our current order is that it provides some authority to the city manager to adopt procedures and directives to protect the health and safety of our employees and the public. Staff is recommending that if an order continues to leave those provisions in to provide continued flexibility for us, as we are uncertain what the future may hold in terms of needing to flex our operations or procedures in order to protect our employees and the public as well. And this continues down into the third main bullet point here, authority and flexibility for emergency response measures as allowed pursuant to the code, and we'll go over those in the next slide. The two other provisions you'll see at the bottom here are no longer necessary, but they are main points in the order, so the first being the reference to the governor's orders. We're not required to have that in the local order. The governor's orders will still remain in full effect. When this disaster first started, I think it was way of reference to provide some public education in terms of what was all in effect. And then the second is what's currently in the order is postponing all non-essential in-person court proceedings in municipal court. That is not required in the local order, our municipal court is abiding by the directives from the state office of court administration. So this is one of the provisions, as talked about on the previous slide, that staff would recommend remaining in the order in order to provide that flexibility for adopting procedures and directives related to personnel or facilities or services. That is currently in the order. And then these are the other provisions referenced as well that are allowed by the code when a state of disaster is in effect. So we would recommend leaving these in as well. Everything from flexibility around the committee, commission, and board meetings, only accepting a lot electronic purchasing submissions, applying for federal assistance or other assistance as we can, accepting certain equipment or supplies, just providing some general flexibility, continued flexibility for operations. And then this provision is also recommended to remain in. This is the total expenditure authority for the city manager for expenditures related to the disaster and not already budgeted for. So this is the current total amount through September 30th, if the order is extended, we would recommend increasing that amount. If it is extended until the end of the calendar year, December 31st, it would be recommended that that increased to 2.75 million. So really there's three options that staff has put together for council discussion. The first would be option one, you could extend the declaration and the order as is. Just moving the date, so moving it out from September 30th to your desired defined period of time. The health and safety policy requirement for businesses would remain. And we've left all the other provisions the same as well. Staff also developed an option two, and sorry, I should mention both option one and option two were in your backup, the draft ordinances and orders. So option number two would be to also extend the declaration and adopt a new order. And what we tried to do in this order is remove some of those items that are no longer in effect or no longer needed and really continue with just those minimum items as recommended by staff. We would recommend having the time period be effective beginning tomorrow until the end of the calendar year, December 31st, as that would align with currently with the CARES Act funding expenditure requirements need to be done by December 31st. So we want to make sure we at least have that disaster declaration in effect until December 31st. And then it's just discussed that total spending authority if it is until the end of the calendar year is recommended to be increased to 2.75 million. There also is an option where council could extend the declaration, but not adopt an order. And that would remove some flexibility for staff. However, we do think there's other ways we could operate, but it may require coming back to city council to adopt some policies. So it may remove some flexibility and timeliness if we needed to respond immediately and flex our procedures or directives. And then if option three is adopted, staff did want to point out we would need to continue with a modified city committee, board and commission meeting schedule if virtual meetings are to continue since we do have limited resources and we cannot go back to the normal meeting schedule with all virtual meetings at this time due to resource constraints. So those are the options we put together and I'll stop sharing the presentation for any questions. Okay. Okay, Council Member Armitter. So I want to express my very strong support for continuing the emergency declaration along with the recommended additional funding going forward and that we extend included in that we extend the mask ordinance. It is working, even though I have been public in my concerns that I don't feel that it's being enforced enough, even with the limitations in enforcement, it is being effective beyond my expectations. It is wearing a mask, it's becoming normalized, and we are seeing numbers stabilize some but we are still, you know, if you look at our curve, things have gotten a lot better, but we are now in a situation very much like what we were in in March, which was a crisis situation at the time. It only got worse. So I want to quote the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg or rather paraphrase her in saying the late Supreme Court Justice speaking on the Voting Rights Act where she said to throw this away because we don't have problems is like throwing out an umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet. I feel exactly the same way about our mask ordinance to throw away our mask ordinance, which is working now, in spite of its limitations, our mask ordinance for private businesses to throw it away now would be like throwing away an umbrella in a rainstorm because we're not getting wet. Fortunately, this is just a temporary umbrella and we will not need it for perpetuity, but we continue to need it and the fact that it's working is because we need it. So I hope we can have a majority agree to continue this like we did last time and thank you so much. Okay, any anyone else? Councilmember Davis. I'm wondering if staff give any consideration to what I'll call an option for and that is that we go forward with the meat of option two, you know, we're dropping out these things that are simpler for us. The references to the governor's orders, the things we don't need any longer because we're not regulating elective medical procedures and all those kind of things, but keeping some form of a health and safety plan for businesses. I said last time we talked about this, even if you took masks out of it, requiring our businesses to have a health and safety plan of some kind that's available to customers when they ask about it, it's available to the city when we ask about it. I think that has some value and merit. So I wonder if staff can have any consideration to a stripped down order that takes out the support flow of things, but keeps a health and safety plan of some sort. That could easily be done. That's really a policy decision for city council. We just developed kind of what would be the bare minimum for our operations, but we could easily take the health and safety policy language that exists and insert it into option two. Okay. Council Member Meltzer? Yeah, taking out things that have absolutely no application, you know, that's kind of easy to agree with and it sounds, and the funding is needed. And I like the idea of setting the timing to the end of the year, instead of having this come up all the time, although obviously if something magically changes, we could take it up, but I think that would be kind of a more efficient use of our time. I can't think of any public health figure that has given a reason not to support the message of mask wearing. And if you remove it from our language, it doesn't take the requirement away. It's the governor's order. What our language does is it does require businesses to have a plan and it requires signage. And I think the signage is a good thing. So I'm for continuing that. Council Member Briggs? I think it's been stated here, but just for clarification, because we are receiving emails that say, remove the mask mandate, remove the mask order, if this item is adjusted in our declaration, that does not mean that the governor's order is not in place, correct? Which is a requirement for masks. I just want to clarify that because some people seem to think that because it's in our policy that if it's not anymore, that it completely goes away. And so I'm just seeking clarification on that. That is correct. The governor's order remains that all individuals must wear face coverings and that's statewide until he adopts another order that says that is no longer required. So that continues to remain in effect. Yes, Council Member Briggs? Okay. And to follow up on that, on ours, it was reinforced with education and not necessarily enforcement. Does the governor's order allow for enforcement of any kind from the city? We can enforce the governor's order, however, there are a number of difficulties and challenges to that order that he adopted in terms of actually trying to enforce it practically. And I think we had gone over some of those in a previous discussion, but especially the wording around detaining of individuals to first provide them a written warning, I believe it is, and then after a written warning, then you could write the citation, but there's a number of challenges around that if you do not have the ability to detain an individual to get their identification and then issue that warning and then a citation and also just staffing challenges as well around that and being able to see it happening as it occurs. May I ask? Yes, go ahead. Sure. Okay. So would that change, because I do think that's important as a reminder when individuals walk into a business, some of them say by per city ordinance. So would that necessarily change and say, you need to wear a mask per governor's order or how would that look with some of how my colleagues are suggesting? Sure. So right now, underneath the city's order, businesses must have a policy and they must post signage. If that local policy were to go away, it's up to the individual businesses about how they want to inform or educate their customers on the governor's orders or their own company policy. A lot of companies have their own policy in regards to what's required in their stores. So right now, we locally, there is by city order the requirement to have that signage posted, if that is no longer in effect, businesses do not need to have that. But it doesn't mean that the face covering requirement is gone, it still remains. It just changes maybe the responsibility somewhat between should it be the business's responsibility to maybe more the individual's responsibility. Okay, thank you. Okay. Who else? Council member Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I think option two is what I was advocating for the last time this came before us. Removes that burden from our businesses. The governor's order is still in place, that takes it down to the individual. So in turn, a business isn't going to report someone who walks in not following the governor's order right now because in the city, they're the ones that are supposed to be policing us. So by removing this, it allows them more flexibility in how they handle the situation, whether they want to approach the person or they want to find a different way to handle it. But again, no business is going to report someone in their business not wearing a mask and take a chance on being fined by the city, that's kind of the way I feel about it. Okay. All right. And so you're saying that option two provides that particular avenue moving forward. Correct. And I mean, every business that has opened back up has a health and safety policy in place, if they were still required to have a sign on the door saying it's the governor or I'm okay with that. I just don't feel like the burden should be placed on our businesses here in town. Okay. All right. Anyone else? Councilmember Armitage? Yeah, I just want to kind of provide another perspective on that. You know, just from the perspective of some workers who I've heard from, and I don't mean to pretend that, you know, just because I've heard from a number of workers who support a mask ordinance that they represent all workers, but I have heard from some, you know, pretty scared workers in a number of different areas, business areas, in the business arenas in the city, who in spite of the limitations that we have are really grateful that we have a mechanism whereby a worker in a business can tell a customer, can point to a sign and say by our city ordinance, you need to keep your distance from me if you're not wearing a mask and they can have management come and talk to the person to protect their workers. And again, I know that there are some businesses, you know, that don't want this, but you know, I have heard from a number of small business owners and a number of workers who are grateful for this and are very scared of customers who will come in without a mask and they are not protected, the workers are not protected because they can't go anywhere, you know, this is their bread and butter, this is how they earn their income. And so I see it not so much as placing a burden on the businesses, but really empowering businesses. And remember, businesses get to determine their own rules that the city can approve of. So businesses get to decide, you know, how they're going to interpret these rules. So I see it as empowering those businesses that support their workers. And I'm strongly in favor of this. So I recommend option number one, you know, I'm fine with getting rid of some little, you know, details that no longer apply anymore. But we need to keep our city protections in place because what the governor has is not enough. Councilmember Davis. Oh, I'm sorry. Let me go to Councilmember Meltzer. He hasn't commented yet on this, I don't believe. And we'll come back to you, Councilmember Davis. I did, but sorry, Councilmember Davis. Okay, sorry, Councilmember Davis, I apologize. Go ahead. Go ahead, Councilmember Davis. You know, I want to point out a couple of things. First, we haven't heard from every business in the city of Denton. We certainly haven't talked to every business owner in the city of Denton or every worker in the city of Denton. But the majority that we've heard from, I believe I've heard from and that I've talked to, they've either gone to their place of business or talked to through email. The majority have been thankful that we are thinking of their safety and that we are thinking of the safety of their workers. People wonder why we had more cases in the city of Denton. I'm not an epidemiologist, but it might be because we have more people working behind cash registers in the city of Denton. We had more people that were essential workers even during the shutdown in the city of Denton than some of our neighbors. So the more we look out for their health, the more we're looking out for our own health and the number of cases we're ultimately going to have. But the other thing I'll point out is I think that Councilmember Ryan may have hit on a compromise that can kind of bring us all around a solution. The thing we're all looking for is that people will look out for the safety of people around them and their own health. We know that the signage probably does more to help that and the education does more to help that than any ticket we try to write ever will. If our requirement is that a business have a health and safety plan in place and that health and safety plan calls out what's in the governor's order, that it requires signage, encouraging compliance with whatever governor's order is in place, I think that gets us close to a happy medium that gets the job done and keeps people safe without whatever the boogeyman is that people are so upset about. We haven't written a single ticket in the City of Denton. We haven't shut down a single business in the City of Denton because there wasn't mask compliance. We've encouraged education. So I think if we can get rid of that boogeyman and we can find a compromise, I think what Councilmember Ryan is talking about with signage worked into a health and safety plan starts to get us there. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I think I can probably see some daylight in there. The comment that I was going to add, which I think supports this, is that there are a lot of people who care a lot about this issue in terms of not wanting to go places where they don't feel that the order is announced or in any way real. So it's very pro-business to make an environment where those people are going to feel at least their signage, at least there's some backup that says I can feel comfortable going into that business. I think businesses need every bit of help we can provide them and this will kind of keep them viable to a big chunk of the population. But I'm kind of listening for where Councilmember Davis sees the compromise. So I want to make sure I understand Councilmember Davis, which you sort of spoke of regarding Councilmember Ryan's comments. So to make sure I understand what we're talking about. So what I'm hearing is that it seems like the part of the order of our order that requires businesses to have a safety plan and the requirement to have that safety plan require masks for both employees and individuals that are in their business. I think what I'm hearing is, are you saying and Councilmember Ryan, correct me if I'm wrong on this, that to require a health and safety plan that reflects the governor's order, in essence, removing the city's requirement for that health and safety plan to require masks because the governor's order already does that. And it does it in a way that supersedes any order that we could have. It's sort of almost redundant. That if that health and safety plan gives notice of the governor's order through signage, if people want to request a copy of the specific business plan, it would contain that, that that would help provide we could keep that requirement of a business plan in place, but maybe tweak what we are requiring in that business plan. Am I totally off or is that what I'm hearing? No, I think you're right. And that does two things. The first thing is the reason we passed our paragraph five and the way that we did it, because there was nothing. There was nothing out there from the governor. So we actually kind of went outside our wheelhouse a little bit and we started defining what a face covering is. We started trying to piggyback off of things that he had put out in different, the CDC had put out, and we got into an area where we were on a little bit of shaky ground, but we did it for safety's sake. Since that time, the governor has filled that space and he's defined what a face covering is. He said when it has to be worn, he's done all of those things. The second thing that this would do is take us back to our wheelhouse for a restaurant, for instance. Our health department has an inspection checklist that they go through with the restaurant. That's in our wheelhouse. For our businesses, we issue COs. That's in our wheelhouse, certificates of occupancy. Requiring a health and safety plan is 100% within the city's wheelhouse. It's very safely within our charter and then requiring in that health and safety plan simply that they encourage compliance with the governor's order and post that sign that says the governor says you have to have a mask. I honestly couldn't care less if they use the old sign that still says the city wants you to have a mask as long as the sign's up there. But that would be the thrust of it, exactly what you just said. Okay. All right. Councilman Ryan, does that sort of reflect your sentiments to some degree? Yes, it does. As far as it's saying that the city requires a mask, you're going to have noncompliance from people saying, well, now I heard the city took away that order. So I think the sign's probably within a reasonable amount of time should change to say in accordance with the governor's order. Right. Okay. Yeah. I probably would agree with that because that's really what, I mean, if we're going to make that change to the requirement of the business plan, if that moves forward. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I think that's fine if I'm understanding the intent correctly. And as long as the message is out there, the message that I particularly like, this wouldn't be a legal requirement, but just expressing fanhood. I like the ones out there that say keep dentin open, masks required. Yeah. Okay. All right. Councilmember Briggs? Yeah. And just to that point, I watched the Denton County meeting this morning and heard the report and it's still good news. Our active cases are down. Our recoveries are up. And it was reiterated that that is because of social distancing and mask. And so I think we're doing really good things here in our community and we're able to open. We're getting back out there where our occupancies are increasing and I believe it's because we've had these things in place. And so I just wanted to go ahead and say that it's pretty important, even though we are not going to be requiring business to do this, that the governor's order is still in effect because it is seen to be working. Well, and I know that we can't really, it is working. I think what's frustrating to me is that everybody else is increasing their percentages of occupancy according to the latest governor's order, but bars still remain closed. I think that bar owners and pub owners are just as smart and creative as those who are have 50 to 75%. So I just, I really would just encourage the governor to really begin to look at that and to publish the data that he's using to keep those businesses closed. So, so I'm okay with the option to that Councilmember Ryan and Councilmember Davis have sort of articulated and I tried to summarize with that direction. And then the other ones that are, that are sort of outdated and what we need to do with those, but that seemed to be the major one that was the, I don't know if sticking points the right word, but the one of concern. Councilmember Riggs, you had a comment? Well, yeah, it's just on to your point, if we can consider at some point and may I'll do this as one minute pitch, maybe a resolution to the governor in regards to the things that you just mentioned. Sure, sure. Okay, any other questions on do, yes, Mayor Pro Tem? Could someone, well, first I have a question for staff, then the end of that is I'm going to ask for a summary just so I can make sure I understand where we are. So my question for staff, Sarah, you say the governor's order speaks to public spaces. So how do we, how do we read that in practical terms? Someone's on the sidewalk versus someone in a business. So someone in a private business, no longer public space, if I understand that right or am I off? No, it includes businesses as well for the governor's orders. Okay, so that's very helpful. And then if someone could summarize where we are and then just to make sure I'm up to speed. I can try to do that. So what I'm hearing is businesses are still required to have a health and safety plan for measures that they're going to take for their employees and customers up to them for what measures that may be, but referencing the current governor's orders that face coverings are required for individuals. And then third, I'm not sure about this one, either encouraging signage that the governor's order requires on those face coverings or making it mandatory for signage to be posted. That one point I'm unclear on. If I may? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you for that summary. I guess my question would be to hear my peers on this. I don't, we don't have, let me ask this question. Sarah, do we have a requirement that safety plan be updated? So our original ordinance, did it say the plan has to be updated periodically or at any phase or any interval? No, it did not, I believe. Rereading, but I do not believe so. Right. And I think that's my understanding as well. So I don't, I don't know why it's important to carry that forward. I've been very clear. I voted against it initially. The second term, it rolled back around. I voted for it because I was concerned about employee safety and getting the word out. This gives us two weeks, a week and some change to get the word out that it's rolling back. And so that to me gives some security for employees that are going to be on the front line of this thing. But I just don't understand the practical application of someone that has a safety plan in place that's not required to regularly update it to then keep it in place. If you have one in place, you have one in place. And so I don't understand the need to then reiterate you have what you already have in place. Now, if you're talking about new businesses, then let's have that discussion. But I think existing businesses all were under the mandate before and all would have had the safety plan in place. And so I don't understand carrying that forward if we're talking about thinning out things that are already in place. So I'd look for language that said new businesses maybe would have to go through some process as a version of their approval for their health permit, etc. But I don't understand carrying forward unnecessarily. So understanding the first version did not require updates of any interval. And then the signage, I don't see how we can, to answer Sarah's question, I don't see how we can mandate signage and then point to the governor's order. I think that would be incumbent upon the governor to mandate that signage. If it's a city ordinance, we can then mandate signage. But we can't, I don't think it's good for the city to mandate a sign ordinance that's associated with the governor. It just to me seems a little disjointed. So that's what I have. So Mayor Pro Tem, help me understand about the, so are you saying you want to remove the requirement for a business plan or I wasn't quite understanding. You asked if it was, if it's, if we had a requirement for it to be updated and we doesn't sound like we did. So just real briefly help me. Are you saying you want to remove the requirement of the business plan or do something else with it? Yes, I'm saying I want to remove it, but I would be open to hearing if we want as a city to have that conversation with new businesses. But I want to remove that requirement from existing businesses because it's already done. So there's no need to mandate something that's already in place and wasn't required to be updated anyway. Okay. So, so right now we, we were the current order requires them to have a business plan in place with no requirement to update. Correct. That's the status here. And if we take that out, then that means the businesses are not required to have a safety and what are we calling it? Health and safety plan, health and safety plan. So I'm, I'm, I'm having, I'm trying to connect those dots. Like Mayor Pro Tem is like, well, they have it in place because we required it, but we don't, aren't crying it to be updated. So it's there. But if we don't move it forward in the, in the proposed order, then they don't have to have one. Is that, is that my understanding? That is, and my point is you don't forget what you've already learned, right? It's, it's, it's a legacy document. It's in place because you had to have it in place. It's just, so I guess that's my point. Whatever file folder or whatever cabinet, whatever archive system they have, that plan exists and they have a plan going forward. It's just, we're not saying you have to say you maintain it and not update it. I think is, is where I see it as the same. You, you, at one point you created it and it's archived. And so you can always rely, refer back to it as needed. Well, if I can provide some information, just practically working with the businesses, there's just such a wide range of businesses that we have here in Denton, providing goods and services to the public and a different level of sophistication or just even just the type of interaction how often they're having with the public. So you have some businesses through their corporate policies or just their own small business have developed, you know, very thorough plans, really, you know, practices and measures. And then there's been, you know, some other businesses who will comply, but their policy is simply that they'll require face coverings and post the sign. So you're seeing just different levels and that doesn't mean we're still not going out and doing education with the businesses. But it's maybe not always, you know, as comprehensive as you might think of. Okay. All right. Yes. Council member Meltzer. So to address a couple of issues that have been raised, as far as the requirements we have the health and safety plan, if you leave it as is, then you're covered for new ones that come on. So I think that's very efficient, no problem. As far as the question that Sarah raised, raised about whether we are changing, whether there would be signage required or not, my understanding of the conversation to that point was that we would still continue to require signage. But, you know, and I recognize Mayor Portem doesn't support this, but that we would still continue signage, but that rather than referencing a city man requirement, it would reference the governor's requirement, if anything. You know, I think if it just said masks required inside, I think that's perfectly fine. I don't think it has to say per order of the governor. But, you know, if it's going to reference a legal basis, it would be the governor's order. That's what I thought the consensus was in that discussion and people may weigh in differently. So question for me, the current requirement for the health and safety plan, the components of it are, it requires that there be a plan, that there be signage, and that part of that plan is a requirement from the businesses to require patrons and employees to wear face cover. That's correct. All right. So if we take, go ahead. Those are the minimum components is that it must require what you just stated as well as be posted. It can include other things, but it does not have to. So if we, which is at the business discretion, they can add to theirs, but as far as at least pursuant to our last order, the only requirements we have are have a plan. And the only thing about that plan that the city requires is that you post that plan or you post some statement, some sign, and that you require employees and employers to wear face coverings. So if we remove the require, go ahead. I'm sorry, Sarah, employees and customers to wear a face. Oh, yes. What'd I say? Yeah, that's what I meant. So if we remove from that, the city's requirement to have that business plan require the businesses to say that patrons and employees must wear a mask and they can just simply say, refer to the governor's order. Aren't we not sorta, what's the word I'm looking for? It's a lawyer term, Mr. Davis. It's like the rule is assumed by the exception. It's like you take that out. And that was really the whole guts of our requirement for the health and safety plan. Other than the signage was that requirement for employees and patrons to wear a mask. If we remove that and just throw in it, just a declaratory statement of per the governor's order, this is what's required. It's basically summarizing the governor's order in essence on face coverings. Is that not really the whole heart of that requirement? Yes. Councilmember Davis, help me out here. You're not far off, but I would say that the guts of the thing was not the mask requirement. That's what we talked to most about. That's what was kind of where the rubber met the road. I think the guts of requiring a health and safety plan was that it got businesses thinking about what to do to stay safe. It got us talking about what to do to stay safe. And it got our city staff in touch with businesses about how to stay safe. That if you go into any business, you know, you go to day's hardware and it's not about mask there. It's about the plexiglass screwed to the counter. That's the health and safety plan. And that's the important thing in that business. We went around and around talking about how some businesses didn't even need masks. Um, if we step back from that and get out of that business and just say, y'all keep on top of health and safety and show us that you have a plan to deal with that. I think that's the guts of it. Okay. All right. That's helpful. Thank you. Uh, council member Meltzer. Sir, can you, can you help us understand in the absence of the city ordinance, what the governor's order does require as far as patrons and employees inside of business? Uh, yes, it does require face coverings, um, when you cannot maintain social distance. And I'm looking for the exact language. Okay. And, and, and that's for patrons and employees. Yes. All individuals that are in a public space. So that includes inside retail establishments, restaurants, and so forth, unless they're in one of those exceptions that he has designated. So for example, in a restaurant, if you're eating or drinking, um, you do not need to be wearing that face covering. Um, but when you're transversing through the restaurant, you would need to be wearing that. Right. So there's a, assuming that that's exactly right. Um, uh, it sounds like there's a little daylight between that and what we're saying, because that says masks when you can't socially distance, whereas we're saying masks required, whether or not you can socially distance. Uh, I think our health and safety policy also allows, allows an exception for social distancing. It's the same language. Well, yeah, that's, that's worth checking. You're confirming. Sorry, I'm just reading through, but I believe that was the case. So, yes. So it doesn't take the requirement. It doesn't change the requirement on the business. If we make it by reference to the governor's order then, uh, versus, you know, what we had spelled out a week before the governor's order. Yes. The language is the same in terms of wearing the face covering unless you cannot maintain social distance. If you cannot maintain. So, so, uh, just to the question of does it take the guts out of it? The guts are already there. They're, they're from the governor. Uh, and so the masks are, it's the difference that's left and, and, uh, and I, I think outside of, uh, uh, Mayor Pro Tem so far, I think there's support for keeping that. All right. Well, what I'd like to, I know that the Mayor Pro Tem asked for a summary of sort of where we are in this discussion. Uh, so if Sarah, do you, do you have, are you able to do that? I mean, I can, I can try it, I guess. Councilmember Ryan, you want to try your hand at the summary? Yes. If, if you look at the draft one paragraph five, um, in our backup, if we went with the first paragraph A, all commercial and nonprofit entities in the city of Denton providing goods and services directly to the public are required to continue to implement, continue implementation of health and safety policy. At that point we would switch over to, um, which align with or which explains the requirements of the governor's orders as opposed to as a, as a previously established. Could you, could you state your citation? Are you talking about the draft order? Um, yeah. Draft one, we're on page two. Okay. Let me, let me find draft order. Okay. I see draft. I see exhibit five and exhibit six and exhibit three, which one is it? Okay. It is exhibit five, five. Okay. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. All right. Exhibit five. And then you're looking at which provision? Uh, the paragraph five, the, uh, the sub paragraph A would become the main bullet on this and it would say all commercial and nonprofit entities. It would continue on until you get to where it says policy. And so as instead of as established in the seventh order, it would say, uh, which outlines the governor's orders regarding face coverings. And then if you skip down into the must haves, the, um, okay, give me, I'm still trying to give me the paragraph. You got five AI, little a tell me, tell me which, which paragraph you're in five a, just that opening paragraph. Right. Okay. And then when you change that last, the last few words on there, instead of saying as established in the seventh order, it would say which define the governor's orders. Okay. So you're saying that's where we would make that change for taking out our requirement and just putting in a reference to the governor's orders. Correct. And then if, if we wanted to keep the requirement for some signage, uh, you would go down to, uh, one B in the policy must haves and say B that it's, and you could probably even put all this in that same first paragraphs that'd be posted at or near entrances of any commercial nonprofit entity in the city of Denton and clear view of any employees and members of the public entering the business. Okay. Are those the only, is that the only change that we've been talking about so far? Yeah, except for cleaning up the rest of paragraph five would, would, would go away then. Okay. Is that staff's understanding? Yes, that is we can, and I think I understood that most council preferred option to just the, the shorter, but inserting reinserting what council member Ryan just ride option. What I would like to do is, is, um, if we could have, just take a five minute break, have staff draft up a red line and send it to us or even post it as a presentation, as a, as an item that we can post as a presentation, just so that we all have an understanding council member armature. Yeah. Just quick question before we do. So how many of us just for the record are for number one? I know I understand the majority is for number two. I think I don't see any hands. So I think it's just you. Yeah. Well, it's kind of, uh, if I may, mayor, it's sure. It's, it's, uh, I forget what that term was from the offsite factor of five or whatever, you know, fist to five, fist to five. Thank you. You know, I, my starting point would be one, but I'm comfortable with two with, with where we're headed. Yeah. All right. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem. Uh, thank you for your request. I agree with that. I do want to hear from, um, legal just to make sure I'm not missing something we, because I think there is in my mind and I could just be off. I think there's something to be said for us, including a mask mandate and inserting our own signage requirement when the, when the, I know there's a gap that the governor says if, if that office doesn't speak to it, then the city is free to act in that space. But the governor's actions say, give limitations on how to enforce his order. How does that intersect with the city's order? So for example, someone in practice, uh, files a complaint via engaged in the code enforcement officers go to that business and talk to that individual, right? It's not a, it's not a business mandate. It's an individual mandate from the governor. My question is if the code enforcement officer to interact with that person, are we clear of the governor's requirements for his enforcement? So if that makes sense, sorry for being a little convoluted, but can our code enforcement engaged in that complaint comes in, city staff goes to investigate that, especially if it's a police officer, that's a prohibition. The police office can no longer go because if a police officer engages, then that person is no longer free to go and they are technically under arrest. So the police officers could, could not go on these calls one, but two, does the code enforcement officer run into that same problem if they engage? Yeah. Let me turn it over to Catherine Clifton and Trey Lansford from our office to answer. I apologize. Council member has, but I was having a side conversation about this. Could you repeat your question on that? Certainly. The question centers around enforcement or investigation to make sure, and let me preface that by saying, I want to make sure we give clear instruction for the public so they understand what to expect. And so the question is if, first am I correct in my understanding that police officers could not go on this call because a police officer interacting with the, with the customer, that customer is no longer free to go as they're engaged with the police officer. My concern is that some level of arrest or detainment that would run a foul of the governor's order. So I'm curious if I'm right or wrong there to take that a step forward. If code enforcement goes to investigate that citizen complaint, do they run across any of the governor's strict stipulations on enforcement of his order? And a subset of that is, do we, are we allowed to have the signage mandate? I'm assuming that falls in that gap. The governor didn't speak to, but want to make sure. So I'll say it depends. It depends largely on the drafting and how the language gets drafted on the question on, um, whether we would be in violation of the governor's order by our own order. We could adopt the provisions if I'm understanding what council member Ryan proposed as far as the new order, um, where it references what is GA 29, which is what we've called the mask provision from the governor and where the business requirement is that it tracks that language. I'm understanding that correctly. It could track the requirement without tracking the provisions, um, that have that exception on detention. Is that you lost me. Yeah. Okay. You want to trust her? I think he's asking is, um, if they were, if we require signage, can we find them for not having signage? One question. Okay. Yes. Can we find them for not having signage? I believe that we could. Yes. If you retain that, if you retain D in the new order or language similar to D in the new order. Okay. But then the other question is, so, so thank you for that. But then the other part in enforcement. So a citizen goes to an engaged in and files a complaint about an individual in a restaurant or in a, in a business code enforcement comes to investigate that complaint. Does that interaction at all cross the governor's prohibitions as far as enforcement? Well, the, you're talking, I think, man, maybe I'm getting confused between your question about enforcement of GA 29 versus the enforcement of our own order on signage. Correct. No, I'm speaking. We're, we're, we're, if we're, yeah. Focus on GA 29 and I, and I'll just, let me just put a, put a bookmark here. If this is this confusing to us, imagine the poor soul that's working at a restaurant or working at a retail place that has explained this to a customer. And that gives me great concern. But that being said, GA 29 is kind of the guiding principle. And then if code enforcement goes to interact with and investigate and engaged in complaint in a, in a business, does that, is that in, is that violate executive order 29 from governor Abbott? If they are investigating a violation of our order, of our local order for the sign requirement for the businesses. No, if they could not though go to enforce GA 29. Exactly. Thank you. That's very helpful. Okay. All right. Let's take a, let's take about a five to eight minute break and we'll come back with a, with a markup so that we'll know exactly what we're referring to. Thank you all. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council at 417 PM on September the 22nd, 2020. We are still on agenda item three B and we will now pick up our presentation. I think we had a draft modification made so that we all can sort of see what, what we're talking about. Yes. And let me pull that up on the screen. So this is starting from option two. This is that reduced order that takes away the provisions that are no longer in effect. But we inserted to carry over in regards to the conversation that council just had for the health and safety policy for businesses. So I'll just read this off and just kind of, we can go through the language then when I take it off the screen. So it would require them to develop and maintain a health and safety policy as many already have them in place that incorporates the social distancing requirements of the governor's order as it may be amended, preempted or superseded. And that it would require, this is must, must be posted near the entrances, but it may also include a number of other measures that the businesses may be taking to control and reduce the spread of COVID-19. And then also left in is in regards to the enforcement of this provision. So just to be clear, this is simply for staff to be able to educate and enforce that the businesses have the proper signage posted. That is what that section is included for only our code enforcement officers are not enforcing the governor's orders. So I just want to be clear about that. They do not have that authority underneath the governor's only order. Sorry, only peace officers do. But again, there's complications and peace officers enforcing that order because they cannot detain individuals. So this is the language that we've come up with and happy to kind of edit it as maybe needed. I can stop sharing for right now or I can leave it up. Yeah, let's let's go ahead and pull it down just for a moment. I've got a couple of questions on it. Is there a way that could you email that to us just so that are we able to do that? Yes, we can do that just so that because I think we're going to want to be referencing to it. So my question comes a couple of questions. One is where it talks about incorporating the governor's order GA 29 as amended, etc, etc, etc. Yes, I'll just pull that back up for a second while you're talking. Okay. Then, because I Mac, am I able to talk on this if am I am I going out? Can people see me as I'm talking? Or is it just simply Sarah that's being seen? Because I understand that, according to state law, if we're doing video conferencing, the person speaking has to be seen in the transmission. So I think I think if you're talking, you are seen in the transmission. Correct, correct. Right now, I we are seeing both you and the word document. Okay, good. Fantastic. All right. Thank you. All right. So then in paragraph four, where it says that incorporates the social distancing requirements of gubernatorial order GA 29 as it may be amended, preempted or superseded. First thing is I know if the governor issues another order, it would not be GA 29. It would be something different. It would be I think a GA 30. Is he not or is he amending previously previous orders and adding on to them? Or is there a different order number each time that there's a new order? Yeah, he's he has done both. But if he's making holistic changes, he will supersede and go with a new order. But he hasn't he has done it both ways. I would probably say that just for the sake of being able to capture just modifications, do we need to be that specific with GA 29? Or can we say any any requirements be a state, just something that is sort of generic that would catch? I mean, now if orders fall off, then it would no longer be a requirement. And then my question becomes you're required to develop and maintain the health and safety policy that incorporates the face covering and social distancing requirements. Before I thought we were just simply saying pursuant to this order, this is what the governor orders are required. But this to me almost is like incorporating those requirements into the requirements of the business safety plan instead of it just being a notification of this is what the order is. And that may be a little nuanced, but I thought that's what we were sort of talking about was more of a disclosure and kind of notice provision instead of saying, you know, this business policy is requiring you to comply with the governor's order instead of this business policy also gives notice that pursuant to the governor's order, this is this is, you know, so forth and so on. And then the one other thing was, and then I'll yield the floor in paragraph for three, little I, excuse me, for triple I. Yes. I think, Sarah, you had said that this really only refers to I thought you said the signage. That is correct. The enforcement is only for this local provision, which would then be for those things that must be done, which is the policy must be posted at entrances. Is that the only thing we're saying that's sort of what that enforcement is geared towards? Correct. I would probably be more specific. If truly the only mechanism of enforcement is going to be applicable if there's a mechanism of enforcement. But according to this language to for I, I would, I would feel more comfortable saying that because this is referring to the whole paragraph. This says the whole paragraph and paragraph could be could be referenced as all of paragraph four, which would be I double I and also the material in the actual for sort of the header or the statement there. And that needs to be something that's, I mean, if council, I just put that forward to give it a little bit more specificity. So we'll, we'll hear from other council members comments. Mary did want to point out staff just left off. This should have been incorporates the face covering and social distancing requirements of just added those three words. So I guess my question would be for Catherine or Mac, what do what incorporates is it can be very much a legal term of art? What exactly is the intent of that word? And then the subject following? What are we trying to say that incorporates? We thought that was the direction that we'd heard from council that that was the language you wanted to include. And so if we misunderstood the way you wanted that drafted, then I apologize for that. Oh, no, no, no, that's not a criticism. I'm just, and I'm sure there were a lot of different words used for that note. So but if we say incorporates, what's the legal effect of that word given then the face covering requirements? I mean, the face covering and social distancing requirements of the gubernatorial order, their policy that any policy created would reference the face covering and social distancing requirements that are contained in GA 29. Okay, so, but that's not the city's not making the message isn't that the city saying you're required to wear the face covering and social distance requiring according to GA 29. We're not the city disorder is not saying that it's just simply saying, they've got to have a health and safety plan. And as part of that plan, they're giving you notice that here's the order. And this is what it is, you got to abide by that order. I would actually the way I would read this is that we're requiring them to have a policy that incorporates the requirements of GA 29. So if that's not what was intended, then we need to change that language. Okay. All right. So I'll open it up to the other council members to see if they you know, their thoughts about this, because I certainly am open to different interpretations. So council member, I'm going to go with Councilmember Davis, and then Councilmember Armitage. Mayor, I think you included on the correct word there incorporate and I think it does have a specific legal meaning and I think that's exactly what the discussion intended to do. John use the words you do a couple different words like define or something else I don't remember, but I think what we're going for there is incorporating the governor's requirements. And I don't think that that means that we are enforcing the government's requirements. I think that means that we're enforcing the existence of a policy, the policy ought to include and incorporate the government's governor's requirements. We would only be enforcing if the policy didn't incorporate the requirements, not if somebody's not walking around with a mask on or or what not, we would just be requiring again that there be a policy and have those kind of parameters included in it. I also happen to like the fact that we call out face masks and social distancing. If you ask any every man on the street, what is the purpose of the governor's order? He's going to tell you it's facing mask, it's social distancing, etc, etc. Even if those aren't the only things in GA 29. I think that's the thing that's important for business owners to see. And to your point about GA 29, maybe being too specific, we could even say the governor's orders, including GA 29. That way, they have something to go back to if you hand this to a business owner and you say, follow all the governor's orders. Well, they got to go to Google, they got to figure out which governor's orders have anything to do with their business. If you spell out GA 29 to them, then they know what that is, where to go look. Okay. All right. Councilmember Amater. Thank you, Councilmember Davis. Yeah, so I was wondering, and I think I know the answers, but I'm wondering if staff can explain, you know, for the public, um, what is different about this in two respects? One, you know, if you could explain, say the governor's order goes away, um, and, uh, when the governor's order goes away, uh, what would happen, uh, to this ordinance or, you know, what would we have to do to update this ordinance? What would be left, in other words? Um, and then if you could just clarify that. And then, um, number two, if you could explain what is different about this ordinance versus what we had, um, up until this point, as far as enforcement, not as far as, um, what kind of enforcement we have been historically implementing, but rather what kind of enforcement we can legally, uh, we, we could theoretically legally, uh, use in which kind of situations. So again, I think I know the answer, but I would just, if, just in case anybody, uh, is, is uncertain about this, cause I feel like there's kind of a lack of clarity about, um, you know, how different, how different exactly this is from what we, uh, had, uh, prior, you know, prior to this new consensus. Sure. So I'll take your first question. So if the governor's order went away regarding face coverings, um, but council adopted this new provision, um, what would be required is that businesses help a health and safety plan. And that is up to them to determine what is in their health and safety plan. If there is no longer a governor's order in place, um, on the second question in regards to enforcement. Um, so I think it's probably important to explain what we're doing right now when we receive a complaint in regards to, um, face coverings is we're really looking at the local order. So we'll go out to a business and say, we received, um, this complaint, uh, we'll see if they have a policy, if they have the signage posted and maybe talk to them about what health and safety practices they have, if we can make any recommendations. Um, but beyond that, that is what we are doing. We're focused primarily on education when we receive those complaints and really looking at how the business is operating. Um, we are not going out to do enforcement on individuals in regards to the governor's order, um, because of all the complications and actually having to witness that in person actually taking effect. So what we're trying, what we're doing is more, um, based on just that education component. However, it is difficult at times because individuals will become frustrated because we're not doing anything beyond that to punish the businesses, um, for not, you know, strictly enforcing, um, that health and safety policy requirement. So if this new provision goes into effect, um, I would see the education enforcement role very much the same. Um, if a business receive a complaint, we could see if they have signage posted, um, which would be the requirement and we can still offer the opportunity to talk with them about additional practices they could be taking. Um, but that's really the limitations of what we would be doing. Okay. Thank you. And so to follow up just for clarification, um, so, uh, it hasn't changed in the sense that, you know, before at this point, um, the city could not, um, uh, you know, enforce at the level of individuals could not enforce individual behavior either, or rather hands were tied in the same way that, you know, any law enforcement agencies hands are tied, um, because of the way the governor's order was written. But under the previous city ordinance, even though we were not, uh, historically, um, using this possible enforcement measure, there was a potential for, uh, uh, you know, fine up to a certain amount, um, and nobody ended up getting fined for it. Right. So now that's going away. Correct. Can you, can you speak to that? I believe it, it would stay, um, there could, there's a potential for a fine if they did not have the signage posted. And that's very comparable to what we are doing right now, although we're really not moving forward and advancing on, um, any of those enforcement actions, but we, that it's very comparable across. Okay. So yeah. So, um, but previously it was also, you know, again, even if it was not being enforced this way, the idea was that you would not only post a sign if you were a business, but you would also, whatever the sign said, uh, you would adhere to the rules in that sign specified in that sign. Would we? Yeah. When we had, uh, had these conversations with city council in the past, it was clear to staff that they want council wanted those efforts to be primarily education based. Um, because the ordinance does read that businesses should try their best efforts, I believe at enforcing and or implementing their own health and safety policy, but to maybe not lead to confrontational situations where a business is put in that situation of, um, you know, as you've heard about certain scenarios in the past in regards to, uh, enforcing face coverings for individuals. So, uh, it would be difficult, um, to, to bring a citation and possible prosecution forward to say a business didn't do the best, their best efforts to enforce that. Um, there's a lot of challenges with that and we have stayed primarily education from the direction received from city council. Oh, okay. I, I, I do understand, although, you know, yeah, for me, the previous iteration, um, left kind of more room for, um, you know, potential improvements. I see it would see it as improvement. Um, this kind of, um, matches closer to what our current practices, practices and in enforcement, um, you know, that, that I was hoping we, uh, we could, um, um, be, um, better about, I'll say for lack of a better word. Um, all the, so anyway, that is just kind of, that's just my personal opinion on that. But thank you for, uh, clarifying what the difference is. People still might have questions because it's a subtle difference. Um, but I, I do understand what that difference is even though I don't, uh, prefer it, but thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Uh, just want to follow up and hear from legal. Uh, so only sworn to correct my other misstep misspeak. So only sworn officers are called out if someone files a, uh, engaged in a complaint. Is that right? Did I hear you right? No, uh, police officers are not responding to engage done tickets. Those are code enforcement officers. They'll go to the place or the location where the incident was reported and try to talk with that business manager or owner. Well, I thought I said code enforcement and then I thought I heard you say code enforcement doesn't. So yes, let me clarify that. And if you need to, Catherine can step in as well. Code enforcement can do enforcement underneath our local ordinances and local codes. They are not a peace officer, so they do not have the authority to enforce state law, which is what the governor's orders are. So only if, if, if there wanted to be a citation written to an individual, um, even if you could get past those other challenges, it would have to be done by a peace officer. Um, so when the engaged dentin tickets come in, they are after the fact, you know, I saw somebody in a business not wearing a mask. We respond to those to just say, is there different ways that we can help educate the store owner and make sure that the store owner has the minimum things they have in place. Um, but maybe there are other recommendations that we can, um, provide to them. So, but we're not trying to go out and, you know, see that individual not wearing a face mask. We're just responding for education based. Okay. Um, and then help me understand where the, because I know staff did a great job pointing this out before there, there's no way for this council to exclude the possibility of a fine because all ordinances come with that potential of a $500 fine and we can't then hamstring the municipal judge. So that opportunity is available to them. And so I'm trying to understand one, where's that located in the ordinance? And then two, how do we pass an ordinance that says we have the ability to issue a citation, I think up to $500, but then say we're not, it's not written, we're just stipulating that we're not going to enforce it, but where the ordinances says it's available. If I understand you correctly, you're asking how would, how do we, how can we say we have a provision that says it can be enforced, but we're not going to enforce it. Correct. Um, because we can't mandate what the court does. Correct. So we, it seems like that we can't have that provision because we're not in control of where that goes. It leaves our hands and transfers into the hands of the municipal judge. If I'm understanding the process right. Well, a citation under this provision, under this order, is that what you're contemplating? Yes. Yes, it would. If a citation was written under this order, then yes, it would go through our municipal court system. And I think that's the, I think that's the, the, the connection is that you're right, Mayor Pro Tem. If a citation is written and that citation is forwarded to the municipal prosecutor to the municipal court, that is no longer in the purview of whoever issued that citation. I think your question is how can we have something that says there's a fine that could be levied, but if there's no citation, we never get to the administration or the giving of a fine. So I think that's really what they're saying is yeah, we send people out or we may send people out, but code enforcement can only write citations on things that are within the local, local ordinances, codes and ordinances. Yet it seems that what I'm hearing is that's not something that I don't, I don't, has a citation been issued at all over these last few months for anything that was in violation or something like that? No, we have not issued any citations. Okay. Yeah. So I think that's the, I think that's it. Yeah. If it gets to the court system through the issuance of a citation, you're absolutely correct Mayor Pro Tem, that it's out of our hands. But what's within our hands is, is there a citation that's issued? Well, and so that's what I, that's a great point. And so are we going to put that in writing that we will not issue citations? Because otherwise if a code enforcement officer says, I'm going to write a citation, then all of a sudden we're going to seek retribution to say, Hey, we had a plan that we weren't going to, you know, it gets, it gets convoluted at that point. Are, if we're saying that's our express goal, then are we willing to put that in writing? Well, I think that's a policy question, at least right now. I don't even know if we could, I mean, how, why would you pass an ordinance that you're going to put in the ordinance, a term that says you're not going to enforce it? And that's my, and that's my point exactly. Why are we putting this ordinance out? I mean, that you, you, I could not have said it better. That's my point. We need to defer to the governor's order and adds a level of clarity that says, here's where we are. And our city staff cannot enforce this because it leaves the door open. If we don't, if we're not willing to stand behind it and put it in writing, then should it, I don't believe it should be there. It adds confusion and puts those frontline workers in a terrible situation versus a very clean that says the governor has an order. We're in line with that order safety plan. We can work with you, seek guidance, educate. We can do all those things, but not require them and not run afoul of the statement. And so that, that confusion and that ability to, I think that's a fatal flaw for us to pass something that has citation capability, but then not be willing to write that, to stipulate no citations will be given and it's won't be enforced. I just don't see how those two can coexist without putting, we're strictly, we're sticklers for writing things out to make sure everyone is abundantly clear. And I think we can do that here or leave it off. Okay. Council member Davis. I think the disconnect here is it's not that we're not enforcing the ordinance is that we're choosing education first. We have, we have crafted an ordinance and even the one before this, there was never an ordinance in the city of Denton that said people had to wear a mask inside of business. There's an ordinance saying you had to have a health and safety plan. The reason why we didn't issue any citations is because we went out to businesses and we helped them craft a health and safety plan. It's not that it's unenforceable or that we're choosing not to enforce it. It's that we're choosing to take steps before it comes to enforcement. So there wouldn't be any purpose in writing down, we choose not to enforce this because we're taking steps before enforcement becomes necessary. So I think this crafts exactly the balance that we need. I don't think we're going to resolve all differences of opinion here in this work session at 4.45 in the afternoon. We've got an action item on, on this if we've, if we've struck the right balance for this evening. I think this gives staff the tools they need to, to continue that good education effort and continue to keep people safe. You know, just because we're not, you know, bringing the club down and, and going out there and being the mass police doesn't mean that we're not keeping people safe. And just because we are putting something in writing that gives businesses the tools that they need doesn't mean that we need to go out there and write a ticket every time that education is the better tool. All right, Councilmember Armitage and then Mayor Pro Tems. Yeah, she's been, she's been, let me get to her and then we'll come back to you. Yeah. So, you know, I'll just say briefly, I, I completely agree with, with Mayor Pro Tems' objection, even though I'm coming at it from the opposite, I think from the opposite point of view, you know, I want more enforcement and have all along, I've wanted us to do what it says what our law has said we could do. And as I understand it, you know, Mayor Pro Tems, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, apologies if I'm misrepresenting sincere apologies, but I didn't want that level of enforcement, but I feel like we're both having a frustration, at least I share the frustration with kind of a lot with a lot that doesn't quite say what it means, what I think we mean. So I would rather, you know, rather my problem with it before, and by the way, I also agree with what Councilmember Davis says when he says that we do say in the law, and we did before, that you need to wear a mask and, you know, if you're not wearing a mask, you need to physically distance these, that is a part and parcel of what is supposed to be included in those rules and whatever the rules are for the individual business to adapt to those rules. So, you know, I just wanted to point that out just for the public. Sure. Yeah, you're breaking, you're breaking in and out on your video on your audio. Yeah, yeah, it's sort of crackling. But, okay, we're going to get out of this real quick Mayor Pro Tems and then Councilmember Meltzer, and then we got an action item, everybody can decide how they want to vote on the changes unless there's a consensus. Yes, sir. And thank you. So briefly to Councilmember Davis's point just want to reply. I think the difference in that the previous iteration in this iteration and shame on me for missing it before is now we have a governor order the first time we did not have a governor's order in place. Now we have a governor's order in place that gives strict prohibitions against certain actions. Citations are one of those actions prohibited. I think that is the difference in what we did initially and what we're doing now is we're leaving the door open to break the state mandate and we don't have recourse, we can't manipulate a public safety officer or code enforcement officer. If by chance they happen to make a mistake, they happen to make a decision, they have the liberty and the discretion which that word gets me a lot that they have the discretion to execute that citation under this ordinance and that is a direct violation of the governor's order. Even if we're saying don't do it, they have that discretion on site and that's the conflict point and that's what makes this conversation unique. We're opening the door for someone to run afoul of an executive order from the governor and we have no way to stop that or preempt that once we once this ordinance is in place. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah I don't think that's true at all. They're empowered to enforce code enforcement is empowered to enforce the local parts of it and I have no problem at all with having the implied ability to cite and have it dealt with in municipal court but don't expect to need to like every thing code enforcement does. Ninety percent of what they do is results in voluntary compliance and I expect that'll be the case here too. Okay so we'll get out of this session. I just want to ask one clarifying question. It's my understanding that code enforcement officials officers cannot, I repeat, cannot issue a citation for violating the governor's order. That is correct. They cannot. They are precluded from doing that. That is correct. The only thing they would be able to issue a citation on is in regards to a local order. So if this provision passes it would simply be if the business does not have a plan and does not have the signage posted. Now the plan is going to reference GA-29 their plan must reference or incorporate that but that is up to the individuals to wear face coverings so it would not be punished for a business if an individual is inside their business without a face covering. So this is yeah let's bring it down to the practical. Somebody calls a business reports that someone's in the business not wearing a mask. Code enforcement goes out. They look at the first of all they notice the signage. It complies with our ordinance. Okay it's got the language in there says it incorporates the governor's order. It complies with our ordinance. That's the only thing if it didn't comply with the ordinance in other words if it did not incorporate the GA-29 they could say hey your business your business plan your signage does not meet the requirements of our requirements for the signage. They could encourage them to change it or after 20 times they could cite them if they wanted. But they could not go into that place of business. Find someone not wearing a mask and say I'm going to issue you a citation because you are violating the governor's order. They they do not they not only can they not do that they do not have the authority to do that is that correct? As the way the provision is drafted right now that's correct. It is on the GA-29 puts the responsibility on the individuals to wear face coverings. Okay all right. Okay well we've got an action item on this I believe so we'll we'll move forward on that. We'll go to our next agenda item. I don't suspect this one will take as long as the last one. We'll go with agenda item. I know I know Madison's waiting in the wings. Agenda item 3C ID 20-1478. Hello Mayor and Council I do not expect this to take as long. Let's see. All right. Okay you can hear me? Yes. All right hello I'm Madison Rorschach city auditor for Denton here to present our proposed FY 2021 annual internal audit plan. So since we didn't have a budget presentation this year I just wanted to begin by recapping our performance during I guess the current fiscal year but 2019-20 for you today. So as you know our main work product is audit reports and during fiscal year 19-20 we completed 11 new audit projects and in the previous fiscal year we completed five and we also have an average concurrent rate for our recommendations for fiscal year 19-20 of about 98 percent. In addition we completed our first three follow-up reviews and currently have an implementation rate of about 80 percent. We also began tracking analysis requests that we've received from the city from city management in February of this year. So as a reminder analysis requests typically include providing advice on or verifying how city processes were applied to a specific situation. Since we began tracking these we've received 10 requests three of which have resulted in us issuing a formal report. Finally we implemented a post audit feedback survey in May of this year. This survey was sent to the primary contacts and department directors for every audit and follow-up review that we published during fiscal year 19-20. As on the slide you can see that the questions we asked as part of the survey and the summary of the results for the entire year and I can provide more detailed survey results to council if you would like. So before we move on to the next year I wanted to see if you guys had any questions about this this slide. Let me see if I can any any hands don't see any okay. Okay then move on to the future. So for my future goals for the audit department in the short term obviously we want to keep performing new audit projects that add value to the city. So as a part of this goal I'm planning to perform a comprehensive city-wide risk assessment at the end of this the next fiscal year. This risk assessment will include looking at the city both quantitatively which would include analysis of financial statements and the budget and revenue and expense sources as well as qualitatively which would include doing interviews with stakeholders throughout the city. I'd also like to take some time this year to go through our department's policies and procedures to make sure they align with our auditing standards as well as our current practices. For long-term goals our department basically runs on a three-year cycle and fiscal year 2021 is the last year of our first cycle. At the end of each cycle our auditing standards require us to have an external peer review performed which is essentially an audit of how our department complied with government auditing standards. Once this is complete the results are communicated to the audit finance committee and then also the city council. I also have two long-term program goals. The first is to develop a fraud detection program which will essentially be a series of mini audits. These mini audits will use data and analytics to identify exceptions in areas like payroll, P cards, billing and more and once these exceptions are identified they'll be examined to ensure that there's no evidence of misappropriation. But the first step to developing this process is to review and update the city's fraud directive which was last revised in 2002. So I tend to work with finance and HR to update the directive during this next fiscal year. Second I'd like to establish a routine audit program for several major areas of the city. A routine audit program essentially ensures that selected functions within the city receive coverage at least once over a set period of time. So over the next few years I want to identify these high-risk areas that should receive this type of coverage by talking to the city manager's office and the city attorney's office as well as the audit finance committee. The program would then be presented to the city council for approval and would impact the development of our future audit plans. So in order to meet these goals our department has four budgeted FTE. You can see on the screen the biggest structural change from last year that we're now sharing an admin assistant with finance and public affairs which I think has been working well. In addition we currently have a vacant staff auditor position which I would like to fill before the end of the calendar year. Filling this position will allow our office to perform additional new audit projects and will give us more capacity to do administrative and ad hoc projects like the department updating the department policies and performing analysis requests and fraud, waste, and abuse investigations. So next I've illustrated my proposed time budget for fiscal year 2021. I aim for us to spend about 80 percent of the department's time next year performing audit work which includes several new audit projects, six follow-up reviews, and a risk assessment. In addition I serve as the liaison to the board of ethics which is included in the time budget as well as taking care of some of the administrative work and projects that I've kind of previously mentioned like the fraud directive and the department's policies. And finally I've budgeted some time to perform any potential investigations that come in through either the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline or that come up during our audit projects as well as analysis requests that are submitted by city management or a city council. So based on this time budget there are generally two areas where I'm requesting direction. So the first is the new audit projects that council wishes to see performed. For these new projects I developed the presented table of options which was based on the risk assessment performed in 2018 by mesh as well as discussions with the city manager's office and the city attorney. So based on this time budget I'd recommend that city council select six projects from the projects listed to perform so for us to perform next year. This table prioritizes the projects on financial risk and then safety risk. So my recommendation would be to start with the top six. However, council may choose whichever projects they feel most appropriate. So now I would like to get direction on which projects you'd like for us to perform. Okay. So I'll stop sharing. Okay yep. Yes councilmember Davis. Just before Madison said the top six I was kind of trying to run the traps on that matrix between the different kinds of risks risk and I think she's identified I think those top six are the best breakdown of the different types of risk we face from each of those areas and she has them well well prioritized. Okay. So you're you're okay you concur with that recommendation from the internal auditor. I do. Okay. All right. Councilmember Briggs. I have a question on the water production distribution a little bit. Does that have anything to do with the way meters are read and what residents or utility rate payers are charged or is that something different? So we're actually currently conducting a utility meter reading audit which will cover I believe what you're talking about. This will be more about the construction and maintenance of like water lines and the production of water which is from where we get our source basically. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I've had a few emails recently just about the topic I mentioned so I was curious I saw that and I thought yes yes but that's already in ongoing then that's fine and the ones you have here are okay with me as well. Okay. All right. Any other comments? Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah I'm kind of going in responses that financial risk and safety risk sound like the right criteria to prioritize on. I'm a little curious how you might feel about the cyber security since the safety risk is high for it to make it up into the six we'd have to replace something that has a high financial risk. I mean I don't know do you have any thoughts about that Madison like you know do you think that it's overall comparable to something higher on the list or? I think that certainly cyber security will come up as part of the next risk assessment. I'm sure you'll see it again if we don't select it this for next fiscal year. Each project is unique and you know I think that you could certainly make a good argument for prioritizing safety risk and I think that there is certainly a good deal of financial risk in there being deficiencies in our cyber security plan but I don't know that those exist because I have not on it. Yeah. Overall you know I think I share your assessment that you're going to get to all of these but not you know not all at once. So I'm fine with tackling the first six first. Okay anybody else Mayor Pro Tem? Just a quick question I don't know Madison I guess I'll direct this to you and you tell me if I'm off. I share Councilmember Meltzer's thoughts about the cyber security overall I'm generally comfortable with the top six cyber security bubbles to the top to me because we're going to have a new head of that department and so I wonder if next year is the time to act on that versus a year later if we get on top of that and kind of understand what we have that that's kind of and the sophistication in that space is pretty significant when you're talking about ransomware and those type things and I know we suffer a number of attempted attacks on our system regularly to have a new person in that place and the the level of security concerns there it elevates it to me above something like a understanding the financial risk with payroll but that is kind of at least between taxes and etc so there's a few checks there so I don't know if there's traction for it but I would elevate it up above into the top six bumping either emergency medical services using your your priority or utility pavement I think it slides above those given the open the vacancy coming in etc so that's my thoughts. Councilmember oh I'm sorry go ahead I was just going to respond I will say when I prepared this list I did not know that our chief information officer was was leaving and I would defer to Todd on the timing if that would be ideal for for them for us to come in and do that you know kind of before they the new person started or or a year or so after. Okay yeah and I'm kind of ambivalent on that I think maybe six months down the road is fine it's a serious issue right now we've had some of our cities in the DFW area that have undergone some you know some hack attempts that sort of thing so I like the project and I think as long as it was done more towards the middle end of the next fiscal year it'd be just fine. Councilmember Armertin and Councilmember Meltzer. I guess so I support the top six you know they all seem everything on the list seems very important to me and so you know as others have said I know that they will get around to others eventually. I do have two questions one about the EMS and what kinds of issues you'll be looking at of course you don't know exactly what you're going to find yet but this is what you're looking for and what can cause you to prioritize that one and also about the water item. So specifically so I was wondering for EMS is something that I recently learned about that I don't really know that much about but is you know the extent to which or the limitations of PPE even without COVID to protect firefighters and EMS from toxic you know plastics and other kinds of chemicals that come in smoke. So I know that you know it says EMS so I guess that this means not just looking at fire or not looking at fire but at our ambulance workers but you know they work together a lot of times and so you know concerned about you know cancer risks with smoke and what can be done and I don't actually know you know what is the most kind of advanced. Oh sorry sorry my someone else can go. Okay we've lost you so you froze up we will are there any other question it sounds like we do we have a consensus on oh go ahead Councilmember Meltzer I'm sorry yes go ahead. Yeah I just wanted to comment you know Mayor Pretend makes a good point about a new head coming in on cyber security but I kind of take it in a in a different direction which is that person is going to bring up you know their expertise and perspective and it's going to need to kind of in a sense do their own audit of needs you know as part of as part of taking out of that function so I so actually I'm comfortable going with the first six. Okay Councilmember Briggs and then Councilmember Ryan. Yeah because it's been mentioned that our Director and Head of Technology is gone I just want to confirm and allow the City Manager to speak that that just because that position is vacant that things are still functioning correctly I mean are is there a concern there that we are at risk even more so now because the vacant the position is vacant. Not at all our staff is extremely good and in the cyber security is something that they spend quite a bit of time researching planning for that sort of thing so I really don't have a lot of concerns I don't think it's a bad idea though once the new Director's here just to have an outside look at it and because that person's going to come in as Councilmember Meltzer stating and it's going to do their own assessment so I always think more information is better kind of early in the tenure as they're putting together at that time will become the fiscal year 21-22 budget so I think it's a good project and whether it's done at the end of this year next fiscal year's doesn't matter but it does need to get done. Mayor may I? Of course. Madison are these in order of which you plan to to do them? Timing wise no. No okay good I do know that in the past when we had audit plans there were they were brought back to us after certain were done and then we could re-evaluate so do you I mean we can say six for now but at some point maybe in when the next one comes back to us if cyber security we can change one of those? We could potentially come back six months into the fiscal year and just say you know like hey this is what we had planned we've completed these you know three or two or three whichever however many we've completed at that point and then would you like to change anything? Would you like to re-evaluate the plan? We could certainly do that. I know that that had been done in the past with a few different projects so. I think we did this may come back because of COVID we we were trying to adjust our plan and I believe before then we've come back as well because of audit request that we received too so we discussed we wanted to include that so I don't know that it's necessarily a standard practice but we could certainly do it. Okay all right so do I see a consensus for the top six? Oh Councilmember Ryan I'm sorry you had your hand up go ahead. Well I think most of my questions were answered in that last segment from Councilmember Briggs. I do like the idea of maybe just coming back to us and maybe saving utility payment assistance till the latter half of the year so we can decide at that point if we wanted to proceed with utility or cyberspace as to which or cybersecurity which one was more important at that point in time so that's that would be my direction would be to take the top six but come back to us in six months for us to evaluate which one was the most important of those two at the end of the year. I would say to your suggestion discussion about the utility payment assistance Councilmember Ryan I think that one rose to the top because of Covid in a lot of ways so I wouldn't recommend waiting until the second half of the year to perform that work but we can certainly do that if that's the will of the full council. Okay welcome back Councilmember Armitage. Thank you I'm so sorry you know technological glitch very sorry it's okay to watch the video to see what I missed because I'm sure it was interesting but yeah so just very quickly yeah yeah so I was just wondering you know what you were looking for with EMS risk and if it's about you know worker safety protections and PPE if that factors into it and then about water if you'll be taking up the the issue that I know is something that every once in a while you know since I've been on council I get asked about you know why it is that and I've had it explained to me in a couple of different ways that the water that that people's water bills go up at a at certain times and you know how that is decided it will that will that be factored will either of those things be kind of be factored into your your EMS and water audits and EMT emergency medical and and if not you know what are some of the factors you'll be looking at as far as the water billing that's also included in the current utility meter reading audits we're looking at the billing processes right now so that will not be included in the water production and distribution audit but you will be we'll hear about that soon probably in the next couple of months we'll present that to that audit to you guys as far as the EMS as you mentioned I don't know exactly what we're going to look at right now I know we'll probably look at response times and inventory and we could potentially look at procurement of PPE I don't know that I have the medic like experience to to talk about cancer risks exactly but we could certainly we can certainly look at safety as far as PPE is concerned if that's something that that the council is interested in thank you that is that is something that that I would be interested to to hear about okay all right we've got a dinner here that just got delivered so let's just take five and you guys can grab you something five or ten and and take a break and we'll get started here at about a little before five thirty thank you welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council at 5 26 pm on September 22nd 2020 we are moving down through our work session agenda items we are on work session agenda item 3c and I think we're wrapping this up so just a couple more comments and questions so Madison you may proceed so then we talked about the audit work plan I understand that the top six projects is what I was directed to include and potentially to come back about halfway through next fiscal year to have an update on where we are basically so then the next part that I wanted to get your direction on so I as you know I recently sent the full council memo which is included in your backup for today's meeting and it detailed a proposed process for how council service how council submits or internal audit service requests and how those would be addressed in the future so as a reminder oh I gotta pull up the slide sorry about that there we go there we go oops all right so as a reminder these requests generally fall into one of the two categories shown on the screen so for audit requests I'm recommending that before internal audit performs any research or preliminary work on a on a proposed project the requesting council member use the one minute pitch process to see if there's council consensus to perform the audit using this established process I believe will allow quest to be brought before the full council very quickly since it's a standing process and a standing item on agenda item for council so then if the full council approves the audit idea during the one minute pitch process the next step would be for an audit plan ordinance amendment to be presented I'm recommending that this happen as an individual consideration item so that the new audit scope can be discussed with council before final approval and developing that general scope would require preliminary audit research and work for analysis requests I'd like to establish some parameters around what types of analysis can be performed so that the requests don't prevent us from completing our audit work the parameters I'm recommending include one not performing any analysis of council member actions two only performing analysis work that will take less than two days worth of work which is essentially 16 hours and three limiting the number of analysis requests for each council member to two per fiscal year so these parameters I believe would ensure that our audit internal audits objectivity is not impaired and it would only take about four percent of our total time budget if they were fully used and I also wanted to mention that if an analysis request doesn't meet these parameters the council member may choose to present it as part of the one minute pitch process to see if it has the full council would like it to be performed so I wanted to see if you guys had any questions or alternative suggestions on this proposed process or if there's general consensus to use it so council member Davis so thank you Madison for putting this together I think it's necessary and really good that you put some parameters in place so you're not just bogged down with requests and council minutiae the only I think that the whole thing is really good the only suggestion I might make I don't know what my colleagues think about this is what happens next if it doesn't make I guess get consensus at the one minute pitch stage because you have your three options on your what you sent us there was a the process would just stop be it would be scoped and presented as an option for the next year's plan or see it could be presented the next month to be included as an amendment to the plan I would think that if the whole council doesn't have consensus and there wouldn't be a reason for you to do additional work you know if it's something that you look at and you say gosh that was a great idea I'd really like to scope this out and see if the rest of the council wants to get on board you could do that but if the if the council doesn't have consensus on moving forward I wouldn't want you spending you and your staff's time addressing that any further okay councilmembrometer yeah so a couple questions and I'll also respond to you know that idea so I understand you know and I appreciate that staffing is limited and even with all the staffing in the world time is fine right and there's nothing we can do about that I will you know you don't necessarily have to speak to your staffing needs now because I know the budget requests are already in but you know moving forward I I would like to know in the future you know what you know to what extent you know staffing needs are are playing into this or you know with more staffing what more might be possible I will say you know I'm concerned and this is more of a you know a kind of a long-term concern jet long-term general concern than a short-term concern but you know the extent to which when we're talking about policy I try not to picture who's in place now but you know some random random council somewhere else so I'm imagining a scenario you know where you know say if you got a scenario and there's a majority on council who are you know doing something you know they've got some project together some shady thing and are able to block it with majority to prevent an auditor from looking into them again this is really hypothetical but that is a long-term concern with a policy like this and then another question I have you know and these are all interrelated is that be curious to know because we have the the fraud and waste abuse hotline whatever it's called if you could speak to how the process in responding to that hotline differs from the response to council members so can somebody who a member of the public who calls in on that hotline they can be assured my correct that their concern or tip you know whether it pans out or not will get taken seriously and looked into is that is that right yes any we any investigation anything that comes through on the hotline we immediately begin looking into and part of updating the fraud directive and the department's policies would also help to further outline that process so that we would establish some timelines where theoretically me or my staff would have to respond to the person who had submitted their complaint either you know we're looking into this or you know we looked into this and we we didn't find anything or we looked into it and you know we've we've moved it to HR or there'd be some sort of response within a certain time frame is the idea I don't think we have that set out right now okay and so and would council be made aware obviously the anonymity is protected you know but of what kinds of issues have been looked into or maybe only one kind which ones end up panning out you know what to what extent it would this council find out about that then I have one more follow-up question in answer to that for the investigation reports because of the confidential nature of them I would I would probably report on them as part of my performance review and just give a general summary and potentially you know if there was an investigation report that came to fruition I'm sure council would be aware of it at some point and then that performance review would also cover complaints or concerns that we have received that didn't necessarily come to fruition for whatever reason yeah and thank you so and that that is satisfying satisfying to me because you know the important thing for me is that it gets you know these issues get attended to and then anonymity is preserved but so this says to me you know so that if say a member of the public has a concern for a council member brings it forward and a council member say makes a one minute pitch doesn't get consensus you know that member of the public could still call in on the fraud and waste abuse hotline on an issue that doesn't get a consensus on council in a one minute pitch if it's something that would take more than you know the allotted time is that's correct I mean there's nothing to just just to be to be perfectly transparent that that is a yeah I would encourage any member of the public that believes there's been fraud waste or abuse to report it through the fraud hotline that it's anonymous and I don't from my perspective analysis requests aren't necessarily intended for for fraud investigations because there's a separate process for that okay good and thank you for making that distinction too so anyway so thank you so much I appreciate you know that distinction people have that concern about because I want council all of us now and you know future councils to be able to be investigated by the auditor even if council doesn't want the auditor to do the investigating you know so but anyway open to kind of looking into what the models are you know what other cities do how they preserve that while still you know creating a reasonable workload to address your concern about I guess a majority of council being you know in on something hypothetically I think as far as the way that my office is set up currently there's not much that I could do there are other models of city auditors or independent auditors that potentially could have that sort of authority but that's not how our office is set up okay all right anything else on that well on that particular issue I've got a couple of comments anybody else so just to make sure that I understand so council member Davis you're saying on the memo that under three three paragraph three that if there's not a consensus then a then b and c should just sort of be struck yeah and if it's something that merits some investigation there's nothing to stop internal auditor from running down those those rabbit trails or whatever but there shouldn't be anything else from the council directing work at that point there's no consensus for it yeah and I would agree with that and and so Madison I guess just to understand on the analysis portion because that's 264 hours or I think if everybody used it it would be 264 hours I think I would like to see a little bit more now that I've gone back through this so if it doesn't meet the parameters they can use it to do a one-minute pitch but so what I'm hearing you say is these requests for analysis aren't necessarily to ferret out some malfeasance from a council member or malfeasance from a state's just simply hey take a look at this now would this be will this be in conjunction with not in conjunction with but obviously the city manager would be aware of this if it's requiring particular departments within the city manager's purview is that correct correct potentially like with most audit reports we issue we would probably solicit a management response unless for some reason unless there was a reason not to but I don't expect that to be a regular occurrence so on these analysis requests is are you saying that your deliverable is an audit is an internal auditor response or what what's the what's the form of that report generally it would be a report that I think would be included in the staff report at the Friday report okay there would be a separate document that kind of lists out this is what we did this is why we did it this is how we did it and this is our conclusion and then potentially there's a management response as well I know that when umesh was here that he had it and I don't know if this is still applicable and if it is just let me know that if a council member made a request like for this analysis that information would go out to the full council just saying hey this this person made this request and we're going to do this work because it falls under the parameters that we've established is that still the same procedure yes we can certainly um we'll certainly notify all council when we initiate analysis request and all reports would go to every member of the council okay all right okay anything else as far as eliminating those two on three b and c is everybody okay with that I mean since it's if it didn't make it past the one minute pitch I mean there's really no reason to move forward on that can I just clarify that yes um obviously if there was not full council consensus the process would stop there I think the other two options were intended as if there is council consensus um council could direct us to look at it for the current audit plan or for the next audit plan gotcha so b and c would be if it's moving forward correct we might just kind of put that clarifying uh sentence in there that's perfect yeah absolutely perfect council member breaks yeah thank you with the clarifying I'm fine leaving it in there with that language but also just to make sure that um if and I think you probably already addressed this but just for for my sake because I've had to come in and out um if the the one minute pitch fails but you see it as something worthy of continuing do you you feel like you would be able to bring that back in another audit plan or um keep exploring that in some way or another or do you feel like that would just completely shut you down even if you had concerns about it um I think that uh that that there's nothing in what I believe I've written that would stop me from potentially bringing it up in a future audit plan um if if it seemed like it had you know was a risk a high risk area okay thank you all right anything else okay thank you very much um appreciate it madison I'm going to uh turn the gavel over to mayor pro tem and we'll return uh sometime after the 6 30 meeting starts just to let you know it's important I have a vote on the budget items and also there's two individual items for uh officer rodriguez but other than that we're all good so mayor pro tem you have the gavel thank you very much thank you get to that page here all right and uh so let's see where we so am I correct that takes us to item 3d yes okay so I will call that so it's item 3d id 2014 70 receiver report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding an overview of federal and state civil rights law summary of a recent supreme court decision regarding employment matters and research of comprehensive non-discrimination ordinances uh mayor pro tem we're still on the work session item d three sorry that's what i was 3d yeah work sessions 3d that that's for a different day you're looking at a different agenda oh uh this is uh yeah yeah i think that's next printed yeah we're capital projects let me get there bear with me no it's printed the wrong thing okay that'll take us to thank you i appreciate that the right print out uh so i i so 3d uh id 20 uh 1687 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the proposed prior to prioritization and implementation of the city's capital improvement projects good evening mayor pro tem members of council my name is ethan cox i'm the general manager of republic works i'm actually just going to be introducing this item becky devaney our new city engineer will be running you through that prior to us getting started i did want to take just a moment to uh recognize that we have gone through some some pretty major organizational changes recently uh as you all are probably aware uh todd estes our previous city engineer uh tendered his resignation and exited the organization on september the 11th i want to take just a quick moment to thank todd for all that he's done for the organization over the last three years i mean for those of you that were on council you look back three years ago and you see where we are now from the capital projects the new bond issuance we've really made a tremendous amount of progress so this this discussion today is going to be a little bit different than what you've gotten on the capital projects updates in the past we do want to take a little bit of time just to acknowledge that that change in organizational structure i'll be introducing becky as the city engineer as well as rachel wood who's going to be the deputy director of capital projects they're really going to be instrumental in moving the the capital plan forward as we progress and they'll also be giving these updates along with finance staff as we move forward in terms of what we're going to be covering in this presentation i do want to acknowledge that in your backup in your packet there you do have an organizational review from a firm called plant moran they were brought in by todd estes to basically do a stem to stern operational review of how we're managing our capital projects so we are going to be becky's going to be highlighting a lot of those findings as we look at it today and kind of the way i would frame this to council is yes we've made a lot of progress over the last three years this report basically kind of tells us where we need to go next you know what are the things that we still need to work on in order to get our processes our systems as well as just some organizational clarity for our staff to really take our performance to the next level so in terms of that that report you do have some priorities in there that they've covered i'm not going to spend time going through that with you today but i would just like to uh introduce becky devine as the city engineer and she'll be going through the the rest of the report for you thank you good evening mayor pro tem council thank you for having me my name is becky devine like ethan mentioned and i am the city engineer and director of capital projects i'm going to go through kind of an update um to mention many of the things that ethan just touched so just a brief presentation overview um we're going to walk through some of the recommendations of the departmental assessment some of the organizational changes process improvements and communications enhancements that the department is going to have along with a brief capital improvement program update and then some next steps and allow you to have some question and answer and also cassie ogden will be joining us for a couple of the slideshows so at that time we'll switch switch spots um so with that we'll get started so from june 2020 through august 2020 as ethan mentioned plant moran conducted an assessment of the capital projects department processes and organizational structure there's four primary recommendations that we received from this assessment the first recommendation is to clarify roles and align positions with project responsibilities the second is to implement a consistent project management methodology the third to invest in project management software and the fourth is to improve preliminary project cost estimation by completing a thorough estimate at the estimate and completion for each project as i mentioned the first order of business was to clarify roles and responsibilities in order to do that i present before you the organizational changes that we've made within our department and we're essentially developing three different divisions amongst the capital projects and engineering department the first division that i will describe to you is the engineering division this division is going to be made up of the traffic engineering along with the stormwater engineering any assessment that needs to be done from a development review perspective in in concert with hr green along with our engineering technicians and in-house engineering staff that position will be led by the deputy city engineer of which that position is vacant currently and we are working with a search firm to hire that individual the second division is the capital projects delivery division like ethan mentioned we are pleased to have rachel wood as the deputy director of capital projects rachel will be working with all of the project managers to deliver the projects from inception all the way through completion and the third division is the public works inspection department that is led up by rob plato our public works inspection supervisor his team of public works inspectors currently inspect the right-of-way permits development projects and capital improvement projects so now let's talk about some process improvements the first improvement that i'd like to mention to you is that we are working to develop a consistent management methodology which includes project charters project schedules and consistent terminology throughout all the stages of our project through this effort we are developing and implementing a new project management manual this effort was began in 2017 and there are quite a few improvements that need to be made to this manual that we can actually have a document of which we can direct and manage our projects by the second item is the selection and implementation of the project management software this is something that the entire team is very excited about it's a one-stop shop where we can include and locate all of our documents it also can give us an overall scope schedule and budget for each individual project and house everything in one location the second process improvement is to develop detailed work plans based on category of improvement these work plans are to include capital improvement plan projects bond funded projects and standard operating and maintenance projects let me give you a little bit of an example of a work plan we're working towards having work plans on sidewalks bike lanes street reconstruction traffic signals so i think you kind of get the gist that we're working through having work plans for specific tasks and categories of improvement this implementation of regular internal coordination meetings also will be with the project managers to discuss the overall project health of each project we're also linking the project manager performance reviews to the project delivery it's very important to make sure that you're paying attention to the scope schedule and budget of each project we understand things come up during a project but we want to make sure when those do that the project managers have the opportunity to bring those to our attention and we can work through those challenges with them the third process improvement is to refine the project budget estimates at completion we're doing this with an enhanced internal review by our finance department friends for each project during each project phase the second item we're doing is identifying outside resources to assist with factoring market data into future estimates at completion now i'm going to turn it over to cassie augden who's going to talk to you about the finance department organizational changes thank you so just like capital projects finance department has recently undergone some organizational changes to help assist capital projects with delivering their their projects more efficiently within the finance department we have dissolved the pmo group and we we brought we created a separate team under the budget office that specifically is dedicated to cip public works and the utilities so you can see that that group on your team is going to have a team lead that reports directly to the budget manager some of the process improvements that finance is undergoing is we're really focusing on closer coordination with capital projects not just from the creation of the project but all the way through close out like i mentioned we do have the dedicated analyst to focus on the capital group and help help them with reporting in their financial needs we're trying to improve the transparency and the accessibility of our financial data making sure that the project managers understand where their funding is coming from and what is currently available and then we're also trying to just simplify and clarify the project funding so that we can identify the current budget the future budget in all of our outside funding and with that i'm going to turn it back over to becky thank you cassie the next improvement we would like to talk about are our communication improvements we have a renewed focus on the responsiveness to the city council and the citizens request that we receive we have staff that is assigned to monitor and ensure timely responses to these requests with the development of the dashboard which i'm sure you saw in your friday report this will help us monitor city council and engage denton requests this process was developed along with our city manager's office i'll briefly go over it so you can see five particular categories in the workflow process with each an individual swimming lane so imagine staff receives a request from that request we receive then we have to review it to decide which category the request needs to be placed in the first would either be a service request the second an informational or the third a work plan if the service request is received then we would want to respond immediately and then provide that information in a response in the next friday report if we receive an informational request we would like to gather more information to provide a detailed response in the next one to two weeks of the friday report if it's a work plan item we're going to evaluate it and prioritize it based on need and update it along with our work plan and and the timing of that document so staff will acknowledge the receipt of the request in the next friday report and then they will provide updates at the quarterly meetings the next communication efforts that we are working on is developing an interactive capital project map this will depict all projects currently under construction and projects that currently are funded in the design phase this will provide as a companion to the construction guide i'm happy to announce to you that we're working on that right now and we hope to have that live by the end of the year the other communication item that we'd like to mention to you is the quarterly capital project updates work sessions similar to like what we'll be doing today these will be regular staff updates on key projects the next presentation is slated for october 27th where we will be bringing back the budget items and these will replace the standing meetings with the individual council members with that i'm going to go into a capital project update what i want to focus on today is to remind you that there are three critical components to every project scope schedule and budget today the two items that i'm going to be discussing with you are the scope and schedule and i'm just going to highlight a few of the projects to be able to give you an update since the last update you received in late june the budget component that we will be bringing back to you on october 27th so with the reconstruction 2012 bond program i'd like to highlight that five additional roadways have been completed with the 2014 bond program i'd like to highlight that several of the board and award projects have moved to construction and that we have completed three additional segments of roadway on the 2019 bond program i'd like to let you know that we are currently working on moving forward with this program we're looking at how is the best way to execute the overall bond program from a neighborhood approach so that we are ensuring that all water wastewater and roadway construction can be done at one time in more of a neighborhood approach now i'm just going to highlight a few of the key projects if you see yellow in color in the schedule column i'm going to make some brief recommendations or comments about those and then i'll highlight a couple of them that where you see the project name is highlighted just to bring you up to speed so on the mckinney quiet zone project i have the schedule highlighted in yellow due to the fact that we're currently coordinating with the uprr and the downtown storm drain phase two project and then we're working through that program on the street bundle design and that's a project that currently has been brought in house and so i highlighted the schedule just to let you know due to the fact that that project has been brought in house it actually is going to take a little bit longer to design the bonnie bray phase four a project is highlighted in green to let you know that that project is complete the hickory creek road phase two project is highlighted with the yellow for schedule to let you know that that project is currently running about six months behind the hickory street project from welch to carroll i highlighted that in yellow because since the last update that project has gone through bid and award and we are moving forward with construction atmas is currently out there working to relocate their gas line and our contractor is expected to mobilize early october the more street project from kimberly to mayhill we're currently evaluating the schedule on that project we understand the scope and are working towards to make sure that we're working with our partners at the county to move forward with that job now on the bond 2014 proposition three i highlight the downtown storm sewer trunk line phase one it's in an orange color that's to let you know that we recently bid that project and you'll be seeing that coming up very soon to council for an award as i mentioned with the mckinney quiet zone the downtown storm sewer trunk line phase two project i show that yellow for schedule simply because we're working on coordinating with the uprr with the quiet zone project and also looking for additional funding on that which will bring more information to you at the next meeting on october 27th the eagle drive drainage phase two and magnolia phase two projects are completed and the magnolia phase two project will be be bringing to you the final change order and then near future the 2019 bond program for the street reconstruction program i mentioned this to you briefly earlier we're working through the overall scope and schedule for the best way to execute that project so i put those both yellow just to let you know that we are working through that process on the sidewalk improvements we currently have two years of projects constructed and we're working on getting those projects out the door on the bonnie bray phase five project we're currently brought we have brought that project in house and due to the fact that it's been brought in house we're evaluating the overall schedule and trying to find the best way to execute the project but with bringing it in house it does slow the project down slightly now for an update on the small transportation projects i highlight the 2019 intersection improvements project in orange to let you know that that project bid recently opened and we'll be bringing that back to council for an award i have the schedule in yellow it's a few months delayed from where we originally anticipated the schedule so i wanted to make sure that you are aware of that now an update for water and wastewater so the 2181 project for the utility relocations the schedule is taking a little bit longer and the project is taking a little bit longer to construct so i highlighted that schedule in yellow on the fort work drive us 377 i highlighted that project in green to let you know that the utility portion of that project is complete on the dry fork sanitary sewer project the schedule is yellow and we actually have just performed a realignment study of that project and received approval to move forward so that project was slightly delayed due to the fact we were doing an alignment study the all red water transmission main has been completed so i wanted to make you aware of that the elm and locus phase two project we are currently working on coordinating with the drainage portion of the project and evaluating the overall schedule um on the best way to execute that project um not only from a scheduling standpoint but a funding and on north south phase two that project is currently yellow due to the fact that we actually it's taking a little bit longer to construct than originally anticipated and also we are working with the contractor currently on some change order items so now for the major roadway so i will briefly tell you that i highlighted bonnie bray phase one the mayhill road and the mckinney road widening phase one all in green to let you know those projects are completed the mckinney street intersection at mayhill project has come through council and has received approval so we're currently working on constructing that and that has happened since the june update and on the very bottom you see the north texas roundabout projects i have that both highlighted in yellow we're working with text dot to evaluate the overall scope and schedule for that project and get that project back moving since it was put on hold due to covid so overall next steps we're working on work plans based on category of improvement like i mentioned the category of improvement could be sidewalk bike lane or traffic signal roadway improvement we'll be bringing back to you on october 27th the third piece of the scope schedule and budget the budget portion and talk about all of the bond programs water waste water projects and small transportation and major roadway projects and with that i will stand for any questions thank you and questions councilmember breaks thank you mayor pratt i have i have several actually um probably some really quick ones but first i do want to start off by thanking tot estes for his work here while he was here a lot was accomplished and i know it was um i guess i can just can't reinforce the reinforce the word a lot um anyway i appreciate his service and i'm gonna miss him uh second i'm wondering on your work chart where the bike and pedestrian coordinator would fit in on those and those different um pockets under engineering i'm if engineering is going to house that in your department yes ma'am you are correct uh the engineering division will house that along with all things traffic engineering so that will be in that first column that i showed you on the org chart okay um next on the um on the study did they review our contract or the work that hr green is doing at all was that taken into consideration when they were um looking at the role definitions and and things like that as such or or not no ma'am this focus was purely um more focusing on the engineering and the capital projects um portions of the department okay because i'm on the role definition on page nine of the actual study and part of the observation was that the staff tenure is low and um it said many have been in the role for fewer than two years and so i didn't know if they were taken into consideration some of the work may be done by hr green and if not is there um are there things that have been done to address that um i would say as far as the staff tenure being low i think the the comment being made in that situation is from the standpoint that we have several new folks as we change the roles from specifically just being an engineering department to being more of an engineering and capital project delivery department so there are several new project managers in those roles um i would tell you that pretty much all five or six of the project managers are new um most of our engineering staff has been here for some time i know brian has been here um as far as engineering a little over a year but for the most part there that comment and was specifically in regards to the fact that a lot of our our project managers have uh come to the city i would say within the last and i apologize i'm new also but i'm within the last year year and a half to two years in those roles and i think that's specifically what that comment is is in regards oh okay that that's helpful so it doesn't necessarily speak to just experience just the roles in the city yes ma'am okay um may i may i pretend i've just a couple more yes okay um and on the on one of the the um observations or um requirements was to look at the change orders and is that something that we're going to be doing now um and to when you're tracking a project to look at how many change orders because now we've approved several and do we have an idea of like say what is the normal amount of change orders do we set that as a as an engineering department like we don't want to do you know more than three or or is that it's not is that not in this study so to address change orders there's really not a standard number of change orders that's on a construction project obviously you know the goal is to keep the change orders low um but there obviously are times that change orders come up um i'm glad that you mentioned that because we actually have a change order sop that's recently been written and we're also going to be providing some information in the friday report and then bringing more information about how the change orders are processed at the budget update in the on the october 27th meeting um specifically in regards to the change orders and every change order that's processed follows the same procedure and so um that's something absolutely that we had planned to bring back when we talk about the budget components okay that's really great and the last question and it's a question that i have and i'm sure many out there are also wondering um when do the downtown construction projects end like is there any relief in sight for for some of those businesses because i as your as your flow chart i looked on it it just seemed like each one had something to do with the downtown and it kind of kept on um extending so um is there any positive information on that um i'm not sure that i have um a really good answer as far as to where when it ends um i would highlight that i think that it's actually progress i understand that it's definitely impacting the residents but on the bright side they're getting new infrastructure whether it be water wastewater or drainage or roadway and so you know it's really our goal for that communication piece to work with the residents to try to help them and the business owners and when they are running into issues or concerns that come up from the construction standpoint but there are many projects that are being done in that area just simply to the fact that the infrastructure um is rather old thank you yes ma'am okay thank you any other questions for staff uh so i have a couple of suggestions or thoughts if if i may uh so one i i wanted to suggest that uh we publish the um number of days work days that we and i don't know what sequence sequence that it is but for to pick up where we left off so uh down uh down by elm there that we're working on the peck four i think it's peck four project but it would be good to report how many days we've had work days versus days we haven't been able to work just so for example if the if the road's been shut down one year and but we've worked 364 days i think that's important to communicate uh for those uh businesses those houses to know that we're we're moving forward regularly versus i didn't see anything happening that day or maybe it's and so i just think it's important to report hey we're we're outside of the 10 rain days in in this full year we've been at it every day i just think that's encouraging to know and a duty we should take on to to pass on to the public uh and then also when i when i talk to people in the neighborhoods especially so this is the northern northern part of town windsor that sort of thing what what i'm hearing is we we worked on all those roads at the same time kind of the sequencing and it pushed everyone towards loop 288 and so i just think going forward if we know in advance uh because obviously we have to plan those detours and those kind of routes and phasing if we communicated that to the public as well to say this phase of windsor is going to be closed for six months here's your here's the detour we have planned maybe those things uh become apparent and we we phase it a little different but that's just something that that kind of the route and how long it's going to be affected would help people plan and and kind of get their head around the the improvements that are coming so those are two things that just jumped out at me and then lastly i guess i would touch on the software uh understanding that's that's great that it's coming on board i would hope it has a 3d capability i think we can catch a lot of the change orders if we have that capability to look at the plans in in 3d and i know that technology is out there um and so it would help kind of see oh well this water line is running through uh this other uh issue and and so just my thoughts uh not sure if you're already working on that but those are the three things that jumped out at me so sure thank you very much i took notes and we will definitely look at all of those items that you brought forward i appreciate it sure thank you and councilmember melzer thank you i have a kind of a macro issue and a kind of a micro issue um you know i i people are obviously they're always frustrated by either by bad roads or by roads being fixed and i'm generally in conversations with constituents uh able to make the case that fixing roads is better than leaving them bad uh but uh one thing i hear frequently now is but why does it have to take so long to fix them and i wonder if you have formed a point of view on whether there's anything unusual or uh you know or or are we sort of right where you'd expect to be in terms of how long it takes to do the jobs and before you answer you know there's that old saying fast cheap or good pick two and my sense is most voters would prefer fast and good if they had to pick two so do you think that we're that we're doing it as efficiently as uh as you would like i would tell you that um the way that the contracts are currently set up and the way that we're working on getting the projects completed um our project managers and public works inspectors are working very hard to adhere to the schedule um i would say that with anything there's always room for improvement um and i'm not sure at this point in time that i can make a formal assessment as to whether or not um you know i have any recommendations um whether i think that you know we're doing a great job or not i think we're absolutely doing a great job and we're doing the best we can with you know the information that we have um and the construction that we have but there's always room for improvement and that's where a lot of these software improvements standard methodology um working through different shutdown forms and then you know just that interactive map is also going to help a lot with communication so you know there's a lot of things that we're looking at as far as trying to move forward um with the different changes that we're making but i don't think that i can make a formal assessment at this point as to whether i you know i absolutely think that it's fast and good or you know or slow and and not so great so um any improvement we're making is definitely a step in the right direction in my mind i'm you know just happy to uh you know just put that question on uh in your mind at this early stage uh now on the communication front this is my second issue um you know i we just get i'm sure i'm not alone in this you know we get just lots and lots of uh questions from constituents about the status of this one the status of that one and uh if i had as encyclopedic a knowledge of our streets as you apparently already have you know i could probably use the map more effectively i wonder if uh well in fact uh i brought this up to ethan previously and he thought this might be coming you know could there not be a lookup tool that's got all the streets huge lift to build it but you only have to do it once right we're not making that many brand new streets here's all the streets and whatever the status is there it is so that i you know type in alphabetically you know alphabetical lookup egan street and either nothing's happening or it's in the 2019 bond or you know just whatever the status is um does that sound like plausible doable actually already on your radar already done i just don't know about it yet so absolutely we think that the interactive map is the way to go um we think it's going to be able to give us a resource to be able to share with you along with all the other residents so all they have to do is log on look at a map and be able to find the information that they want um but that's if you already know where on the map it is right because otherwise i've got to look up on a different map where's the street i'm being asked about and then compare that map to your map i'm not saying instead of i'm saying in addition to just straight type in the name of the street i get whatever the you know whatever the latest notes are sure so the purpose of the interactive map and it'll be something that's a living document that will continue to improve but the map will have a search feature so that you can type in egan or whatever street it might be so that you can look at that specific location our ultimate goal is that you could then click on egan street it could give you the name of the project the funding of the project the project manager and any other detailed information along with some contact information um that way you have all of the information really in kind of that one stop shop of that map so that's our overall goal and we're working towards that um but we're always open for additional um comments and suggestions so we'll we will circle back up with that but currently that feature is something that we absolutely are moving forward with the the search feature is response to my my ask i i look forward to that thank you no problem sir thank you okay any other questions for staff great okay thank you very much great presentation thank you okay that will take us to our next item which is three e all right or do you have do you have more or becky did i miss okay great okay so i'll take thank you that'll take us to three which is dca 20-0001 receive report and hold discussion to give staff direction regarding the amendment process to the dentin development code okay so we're going to move on to the next item which is the next item which is the next item okay i'm not seeing it i'm not missing it. Should we take a like a five-minute break? Should we? Should we go ahead and take that break yeah i'm trying to get someone's attention okay got it okay so we'll take a five-minute break so it is now uh 6 21 we'll be back at let's say 6 6 25 okay welcome back to this meeting of the dentin city council uh we're back from break it is now um 6 28 on september the 22nd and we left off with item three e and i'll just recall that that number again which is uh dca 20-0001 b and we're prepared to receive a report and hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the amendment process to the dentin development code good evening mayor pro tem council good evening scott mcdonnell director of development service my pleasure to be here i'm here this evening to speak with you regarding the dentin development code and the amendments going forward the brief agenda of the presentation this evening is i'll give you a history of our 2019 dentin development code the amendments and what how we're looking forward to a strategy of bringing them before council to discuss talk a little bit about the development code review committee our proposed schedule and seek council direction on the process brief history on this is in april of 2019 the 2019 dentin development code was provided to be used in conjunction with our previous code september of 19 the official zoning map of the city was adopted and both were effective on april 1st 2019 it has been approximately one year on this one year anniversary we're bringing forward a number of amendments which will provide clarity in line with the process improvements that we've implemented we have prepared draft code amendments and by virtue of the development review code committee would like to bring those forward now in order to reestablish that committee need direction from council if you recall we had three council members three planning and zoning commission members in a staff recommendation that we use the same process and use the same members because it is the same code and we're talking about many of the same items recognizing that this is an election year we recognize that we may have some transition when we get into this a little further so at that point in time knowing what direction we'll go we may have to come back before council and the planning zoning commission to reappoint members or or make adjustments to that committee but it is staff's recommendation based on the effective mission the efficiency of utilizing the committee to bring that in conjunction with what amendments we're going to discuss today and how that process would work is that we would work through the development review committee we vet through discuss what staff has provided and when we're doing that legal is involved we would take those forward to then pnz and then from pnz to council the amendments that we're proposing to bring forward we've broken into a group of categories one would be the priority changes the amendments that you know we we feel are a priority and we would bring forward first we have a number of substantive changes so those amendments that require policy direction from council and review and direction from the development code review committee we also have criteria manual transfer so a number of items within the criteria manuals that may conflict or not complement the development code just to get those items out of the criteria manuals and into the code and then the largest majority of the changes are non-substantive changes so just typos references a different additional language to provide clarity and deleting any of the duplications that we may have and any changes that council may make that that could cause a conflict the non-substantive change topics are really just as i mentioned typos making certain that our references are accurate the additional language to clarify intent in a number of the sections getting ready of any of the duplications that may exist and anything that is just really just a non-substantive change the criteria manual those transfer items really kind of break into a number of areas that are outlined here i won't go through all of those but ultimately it really is any of the criteria manuals as well as our specifications the city specifications are currently being reviewed and prepared by kimberly horn they're just about completed with that which ties in nicely with the schedule that we're proposing to bring forth to council the substantive change topics you'll notice one two and three in a different color those items were really vetted through the development review committee and ultimately the dcrc had determined that those items needed to come before council for the before the full council for direction policy and ultimately the the path that we're going to go so those items are are substantially ready to come to council the additional items which i will not read through is just you have this powerpoint in your backup is just all of the other areas that we'll be working through the substantive changes that we've recognized that need to occur as a result of of changes to processes changes legislatively and as we've just worked through utilizing the new code our priority changes ultimately batch one would be that of tattoo and piercing parlor that item is already scheduled to come before council we we may have a work session prior to the october 20th meeting to talk about this and maybe some others as well as development contracts and some of the other items that that we have been working on since last year the second batch really would be those those larger more substantive pieces of of chapter two which really align with the process improvements that we've made it's consistent with the updates to the legislative changes our comp plan amendment and really looking at our revised plan development and overlay procedures and then we'll do deal with any of the pre-2019 development code policy issues that that need to be addressed to give you just a very brief high level overview of our schedule we're here tonight to talk to you about you know our our process and the direction that we'd like to go looking for your approval to reestablish the development code review committee we'd like to bring that back to you i know october the sixth and again utilizing the same members that were there so we don't have necessarily a learning curve that that that committee was great involved for probably about 18 months of going through the code and then we'll bring our priority changes so those items that have to come forward i.e. the tattoo parlor on the october 20th and 27th any of those others and then we'd start working through the substantive changes the criteria manuals and all the while we'll be working on the non-substantive changes we have approximately about 80 pages that we've laid out as far as color coded similar to this process kind of maps out what type of change they are the intent and the rationale for making those changes so we've been working on this with legal we have most of this consolidated down and think that we're capable and should be able to bring this forward in relatively short time frame i'll stand for any questions at this point in time thank you if we can pull down a presentation thank you questions for staff council member davis and then council member armature after that sorry if these things are kind of scheduled out already for future agendas i guess the direction you looked for today is primarily do we like this timeline and to reestablish the committee is that is that right that would be correct okay then i'm in favor of reestablishing the committee as we had it to uh enact the big major amendment the new development code um and i'll go ahead and kind of give staff a heads up i appreciate you're going to bring forward rationale um seems like a lot for a first year anniversary i'm not saying it's not not called for but i do really look forward to uh seeing the rationale and kind of walking us through the process for making so many amendments you know one year in thank you okay council member armature uh yeah so i'm wondering um how does this timeline fit uh with the um housing uh consultants of evaluation uh with the community development department um of our housing needs and dent and i know they've already done some work on that uh but because i see um you know i think for obvious reasons housing is connected to uh and you know limited by rules of development code from everything from you know having to have an sup for for certain kinds of development um and including you know what kinds of more affordable housing are allowed in what kind of neighborhood so is there is there some has there been some coordination with the uh timeline and also with kind of the the substance of proposed uh changes which i know aren't ready yet but you know as you talk about this moving forward um not necessarily with the timeline we do work very closely with the other departments um we recognize as if you recall in the update to the development code we provided many more options for affordable housing um and certainly any of the processes that come out of out of community services uh will will engage with them and and you know just look at how it is that it may be a part of the code or any recommended changes so um certainly not directly a part of this um these are these are somewhat different but at the same time we we absolutely do work with all the other departments and we'll have a series of meetings making sure that we have input from those departments wonderful that that would be great because i would love for for uh for that consultant if assuming they're still working with us to be able to have a chance if they haven't already to really review the code while it's at this in process of review thank you councilmember briggs uh yes so i'm i'm glad that this is finally coming back to us i thought maybe that some of these would have come back a little bit sooner but um i assume that these are coming back to us because of real life issues that um were gone through during the permitting or planning phase yeah all of the above just we've heard from we've heard from the users uh we've recognized from staff and and additionally legislative changes have perpetuated some of this so okay thank you okay any other questions for staff councilmember ryan god i look forward to talking to you in the pages understand thank you okay any other questions comments for staff i will say and let me ask uh mr city manager or legal you'll have to remind me of the name of it but there's the issue with the uh gaming that's uh near stroud street in the that that's happening late evenings it's where they can use the slots and then get tickets and cash those in what what is the name of that and is that incorporated in this um i know that uh the city attorney had put together a uh a status report for council about a year ago and our ability to regulate those or not so we're gonna need to wait for erin to get back to answer that more specifically okay i think there's something liners uh the eight liners eight liners eight liners yes thank you and so i guess just as a lead in and when erin gets back he can answer i'm gonna ask that that get caught up in this conversation uh because that is one i think we need to address it it ranks i it's a priority for me um but we'll see what his analysis is but just to give staff and everyone a heads up so okay uh any other thoughts questions for for scott on this topic okay very good thank you scott appreciate it okay so that completes let me make sure yes that completes our work session and that will take us to a closed session i let me do this let me call it and then we'll take a break to a quick five minute break to prepare the room so i'm going to call um listen to following the completion following the completion of the work session city council will convene in closed session to consider specific items when these items are listed below under the closed meeting section of the agenda the city council reserves the right to adjourn into closed meeting at any time an open meetings agenda consistent with chapter 551 of the texas government code as amended or otherwise allowed by law so we'll go into close we'll go into break and then i'll call the first closed session item but we're now uh i guess on the edge of closed session if you will and we'll take a five minute break welcome everybody back to this meeting of the denton city council on september 22nd 2020 it is 7 49 pm and we have finished our work session items and our closed session so we will now go into a special call meeting at 7 49 to consider the consent agenda item the rest of the agenda and we did have a special agenda section for the budget that said it had to start at 6 30 or after but clearly we've we've met that threshold so we're just going to move down through the budget proceed as normal our first item on the agenda is our consent agenda here would entertain action on the consent agenda council member ryan i move approval of the consent agenda except for items k af ag and ah to be taken up individually after the vote af af ag ah and k is that correct correct all right and then yes council member davis just going to second okay and um what we'll do after we take action on the consent agenda because i know several of you are going to be recusing i'll let you announce which agenda items you will be recusing on that we'll be taking up as an item for individual consideration as those come up to be called all right we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda except for items k um boy this is a long one af ag and ah all right uh so council member ryan house a you on that motion all right council member davis aye council member melzer aye council member briggs yes council member armenter yes mayor protem aye mayor watts is an i the motion carries seven zero our first item that was pulled from the consent is an agenda item 1k which is id 20-1810 um and so this wasn't i don't think we needed a um i'll call it considered option of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing a service agreement between the city of denton and our daily bread i don't think we had a presentation on this did we get all the adjustments made that we needed to make on the ordinance council member armenter right yes do we do we need to make an amendment uh to account for the adjustments uh mr deputy city attorney how do you how do we should we handle that yeah there's been a new ordinance distributed to the council members so if you will make a motion to approve that agenda item with that ordinance that'll be sufficient okay should we read should we read from it or just refer council member armenter you can if you'd like to make the motion and then just read the parts that's amended you're certainly welcome to do that absolutely um so i move to let's see let me find this in my email um see what was the subject heading for the email you said the email was sent to us um it's called consent agenda item k at 528 from this part here it is in 528 okay so yeah i moved to um amend uh consent agenda item k uh to meet the specifications uh in the updated ordinance which is i uh upload the pdf i know that it includes uh two additional expenditures uh that is um uh 850 from council member armenter uh to our daily bread and let's see and then mayor watts how much from from you says 1700 yes 1700 okay and 1700 from mayor watts in addition to uh the expenditures in the original item k thank you council member armenter one question i know in the work session you were trying to split it out but we couldn't do it because one of the organs that did you just go ahead and decide to put it all there i did i i did because yeah i will do the other one later all right so council member armenter made a motion to accept the ordinance as drafted and uh the amended ordinance as read and then drafted with those changes uh chair would entertain a second council member briggs i'll second all right council member armeter how to say you on the motion yes council member briggs yes council member melzer aye council member ryan all right council member davis aye mayor protem all right mayor watts is an i motion carries seven zero we'll take up the first uh one or the second one excuse me of items agenda item 1 af id 20-1728 and is there any recusals on item af council member melzer listen mayor let me just suggest for efficiency if we if you want to go ahead and take af and ah uh you know at the same time because the same people will be recusing for the same reasons okay yep that's fine uh yeah so be recusing because the university so we'll do af and ah but we'll start with af and then we'll proceed with ah and then ag so uh af i believe council member melzer it is it armeter y'all be recusing or or i don't remember yeah okay okay all right af is id 20-1728 consider adoption of an ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute a service agreement related to a public education and government grants with the university of north texas council member davis move approval uh council member ryan i'll second all right uh we have a motion and a second council member davis how say you aye council member ryan all right mayor protem all right council member briggs yes mayor watts is an i motion carries five zero we'll take ah now id 20-1730 consider adoption of an ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute a service agreement related to a public education and government grants with the university of north texas council member davis move approval council member ryan second all right we have a motion and a second council member davis how say you aye council member ryan all right mayor protem all right council member briggs yes uh mayor votes yes agenda i mean items carry five zero if we now could invite council member melser and armature to join us and i believe we're on agenda item one a one ag which council member davis i believe you're recusing on this one is that correct that's correct i'm recusing on ag okay thank you okay ag is id 20-1729 consider adoption of an ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute a service agreement related to public education and government grants with the denton independent school district council member ryan move approval council member riggs i'll second we have a motion and second council member ryan how say you aye council member briggs yes council member armature yes council member melzer aye mayor protem all right mayor watts is an i that motion carries six zero we are now moving to items for individual consideration agenda item 2a consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation extending the effective period of the declared state of local disaster superseding and replacing the ninth order of council on the city of denton august 25th 2020 approved agenda we did have two people making comments using our online form there were two in support zero against and that was all the public comment that we had at this time on that agenda item so uh is there a presentation brief presentation uh good evening no there is not um just wanted to point out um so the ordinance is in your exhibit three that was included in legistar that draft ordinance would extend the state of disaster until december 31st 2020 and then the draft order for consideration is the one that was discussed by council this afternoon that was emailed to you at 5 p.m this evening i also have a copy of it i can pull up on the screen if you wish yeah i think that would be good just for the public so that we can just show what what has been changed if you just wouldn't mind just going over those changes and and then we'll sure have discussion so this is the current um draft order of council for consideration um so a couple of key points um it would extend the order um in alignment with the disaster declaration for consideration through the end of the calendar year to december 31st it does include some of the minimum provisions that staff recommended to provide flexibility to the city manager to adopt procedures or administrative directives and some other actions for us to respond to the covid-19 disaster and protect our employees as well as the public and then the discussion we had this afternoon with council in drafting this language that you see here in paragraph four in regards to businesses being still required to develop and maintain a health and safety policy with the difference that that policy should incorporate the face covering and social distancing requirements that are already mandated by governor abbott through ga 29 so governor abbott's orders require that all individuals in public settings where they cannot maintain social distances must wear face coverings and so in alignment they um they must post signage at the entrance locations um that shares that and then they may adopt other mitigating measures as part of their policy and then these are the other actions as mentioned earlier that provides some flexibility to the city manager and staff to continue to adopt uh and adapt to the disaster in the covid-19 that's kind of a overall and then at the bottom here the expenditure authority was increased to 2.75 million total and that is from what i believe it was uh two hundred million fifty thousand so we're increasing it another seven hundred thousand that's correct and that's for um and those are typically are most of those funds paid from the um covid relief funds the cares act funds yes that is correct okay all right good um all right just just want to make clear councilmember davis i was going to make a motion mayor but it sounds like you want to clarify something first yeah i just want to make sure for uh those that are watching that when we say incorporate the requirements of governor abbott's 29th order that's not saying that the city is the code enforcement is going to be enforcing that that's just simply saying we no longer as a city have within we no longer have a mandate that a public that a health and safety plan with businesses requires the business to require face coverings and social distancing we took that out so the city is not requiring that what's it during what we're asking them to incorporate is just simply the notice that the governor's order applies also still which is the face coverings and the uh social social distancing if people are inside a public space including inside a business correct okay all right all right so councilmember davis go ahead move approval of the draft ordinance that was just presented and was emailed to council earlier in the day councilmember melzer um i'd like to ask a couple of questions and then i to second so just to be crystal clear i'll ask you sarah is is are are people who work in businesses still required to wear facial coverings when they can't social distance that is correct governor abbott's uh order does apply to to employees as well where they cannot maintain social distancing and and our patrons are customers of businesses still required to wear facial coverings face coverings when they can't social distance inside a business yes that is correct okay i second one of the exemptions okay we have a motion and a second any discussion uh councilmember armature then mayor protian yeah can can you speak uh sarah can you speak to whether the city is prevented from enforcing in in any way uh our city ordinance the city mask requirement nevermind code enforcement just you know any form of enforcement i'm somewhat confused by the question let me let me let me ask a question of clarification councilmember marty you said enforcing a city mask ordinance the city this does not represent a city mask ordinance the the the governor's ordinance as incorporated in our uh new emergency mandate the city cannot the city's prevented from enforcing that correct or can can you explain can you explain how that works with the governor's order so the city can enforce city ordinances that are adopted in um in order so if this one was adopted it states that the business must have a health and safety plan that incorporates or references the governor's and that they must post signage so what we would be limited to enforcing is just to check that they have that plan and have they posted that signage yep so okay thank you so just to clarify so for the public so the city can enforce that that the business has uh has the sign if the business doesn't have a sign that's enforceable by the city that is correct okay all right anybody else mayor protian yeah uh i just want to um ask staff and i don't i don't know if we need a consensus but can we i think it's important to list in our ordinance the uh provided exceptions in the governor's order obviously we reference it uh by name but i there's eight exceptions that the governor lists that i think would be prudent for us to add versus ask those that see our ordinance to make the connection themselves i don't know if we need a consensus on that but that's one amendment to the document per se and and just leaving that setting that aside for a second i appreciate the the mayor's kind of framing of the item before us i still do not support the mandate on the um the health plan because we already have it in place i think it's a bit redundant but it's the best of of what i believe to be a bad option which is perceived with what we have and so i would just ask staff to be uh hyper diligent to um get i guess disseminate this information as best as possible but depending on this vote obviously it's we've talked about it for hours and my my chief concern is we're going to have frontline workers that it took us hours to come to this conclusion that are going to have minutes uh to explain these kind of intricacies and so i i just think we need to equip ours our business owners are their staff as best as humanly possible to to to make sure cooler heads prevail because this is it's just undeniable it's a contentious issue staff will work on it immediately following this item a press release and some other educational materials as well as talking points for any of our field staff that may be going out to visit with the businesses okay and your thoughts on the do do we need a consensus to include the exclusions or the exceptions help me understand um help me understand um the the reason for that i don't mean that and i'm just trying to understand what the interest is that you're trying to uh advance yes i think because if they were because there's there's eight of them for example 10 years age of under medical conditions i mean there's some pretty large groups of exceptions that i think should be called out uh because if not if i just read this as is i'm going to read it to say that the governor has a mask ordinance and there's exceptions but i don't know what those are am i as a citizen am i going to go look those up where do i find those uh again with the number of executive orders that come out of the governor's orders office it's just it seems confusing uh to the lay person to me so i think to clearly spell out uh those exceptions again goes a long way to avoid confrontation so if someone comes to the door and says i have i have a medical exception someone within if they don't know any better would say no the governor of texas says you can't come in here regardless versus the everyone being on the same page to say if they have a medical exception they're allowed to come in okay uh council member melzer uh if that's being offered as a friendly amendment uh i certainly have no objection if the mover of the motion council member davis uh has none okay council member ryan mayor i'm trying to pull back up the ordinance itself here it is we already have in here and this would make it more confusing down the road in my opinion on on trying to include all those exceptions uh that uh it's order ga 29 as it may be amended preempted or suspended and so if we start putting the exemptions in and they get changed at the state level that makes it even more confusing so i think we're better off just leaving that we're following what the governor had originally put out there or as he amends it or or or makes changes to that so that's why i don't want to list that i would not be able to support listing all those exemptions in there it's a quick and easy uh look up if you google ga 29 ga-29 texas it will pop up it's a five page document you know when you get past the warrior as it's one page it's got those exemptions on it so it's not going to be that difficult for the public to figure those out councilmember armature uh yeah how about when we just posted online uh in an announcement and on the covered part of our webpage we just have a link to those exceptions you know and as they change they can change the link okay all right um i i gotta be honest i think we've made this way too complicated um i mean it's the governor's order is in place people know it's in place you know people send us emails saying don't uh you know renew your mask ordinance and i think when we you know we are saying we're not we're not putting a mask requirement on the businesses in their business plan but when we include this i think we're saying when incorporate so i'm probably not going to support this just because i think it's made it too complicated if we have them have a business plan and they and they post that business plan and they have it available to people people know there's a mask ordinance in place they know that you got to be have a mask when you're coming in when you're going out if you can't social distance so i just think it makes it too complicated because now we're trying to add things to explain things because we don't have things in there so that's that's where i'm at i'm just for keeping it simple and i think everybody understands we have a state ordered uh face covering mandate and in the end everybody has to be personally responsible for knowing what those exceptions are knowing what the order is and i think it's very clear that that's something that we we need to be aware of so that's where i am on this uh councilmember briggs for me when we first started discussing it in the work session it seemed really simple we were just going to make sure that the business plan required signage uh because it's impactful so i don't i don't i don't understand how it became that all the way up until where it's just gotten so convoluted where people don't understand what it means anymore well i'm just trying to go back to the original uh conversation well i think that people were saying yeah we want them to be able to have a signage but then what is included in the signage i don't have a problem with saying that there's a business plan that says you know we have a business plan but it's like we're trying to tell people something that i think everybody already knows and that is there is a face covering order from the governor and there are exceptions and if people care about those exceptions they'll go look them up we other than that we just need to post we need to put in the business plan just post the whole the whole order i mean if we're going to say it's going to incorporate it when you're you got a legal document i think council member davis will uh attest to this and you say this is incorporated by references as if you add the whole thing in there well i think that can be very confusing so that's just where i am so i'm not trying to change the conversation i'm just expressing my sense of uh frustration in my sense of sentiment council member melser yeah i i don't know if i understood but i uh what mayor pertin was proposing i understood it to mean he wanted that spelled out in the ordinance not that he wanted that on the sign uh and i you know it's fine with me to articulate you know as much of the governor's order in the ordinance you know as as uh would please anyone here uh but but i'm looking for clarification uh from mayor pertin did was your was his intention that that is to be on the signage no sir you're you are correct in the ordinance okay well and i'm still fine with that okay all right council member armater i don't think it changes or complicates anything okay we're just saying the governor's order uh stands and you gotta have signage okay all right thank you council member cancer council member armater uh let's see well if if all we're saying is is the governor's order stands and you need signage and that's kind of what we originally had um i i agree with uh council member ryan that if we are you know to list all the exceptions then every time something changes uh from the governor then we would have to update the ordinance whereas if we just say say see you know see see the see uh the state law um and then we can put a link on the website to that we we don't need to change anything substantive so i'm with them keeping it um the way it is um uh and uh that way we don't have to keep coming back and changing it with every little change from the governor's office yep all right anybody else council member davis so it's my motion that's on the table right now there's been an amendment offered um we haven't had a vote called on the amendment it was kind of offered for a question of consensus um i i agree with council member ryan and council member our mentor that we had a simple solution that came out of our work session it wasn't perfect uh it's what most of us could agree on the most important thing that this ordinance or this order does this declaration is makes available funding huge amounts of funding for very vital programs that we're doing that we're doing the second thing it does is requires a health and safety plan we made it as simple as we possibly can and we have a phenomenal uh public relations staff a public affairs staff that's already done an excellent campaign of explaining uh the previous order i think they can do just as good a job explaining the new order um those keepden open signs did just the trick they were perfect i'd expect that they can do just the same with the the new order whether we spell it out jot and tittle in the order itself or whether we reference the governor's order the information is available and and i think we can convey it as it is so um i'd i'd urge a vote on i'm not going to call the question because i just asked for another vote uh but i i'd urge that we move forward with a vote on the motion that's on the floor okay do we have a second mayor we already have a second a vote mayor we already have a motion and a second for this item to be approved yeah i knew councilmember davis but councilmember melcher you seconded that yeah unless you're taking a vote on the calling of the question which i'll second as well no i don't think that was an official calling of the question i don't believe was it councilmember davis okay yeah i don't think we have that motion on the floor um now uh i guess though we need to ask because mayor pro tem uh you you asked for a consensus but you didn't term it as an amendment which if you're making an amendment then we would need a second on that and then we would take a vote on that amendment um if i may yes yeah no then no it's fine i i can read the tea leaves i just i just want to understand i share your your concern and i thank you for your input uh but i'm gonna i'm gonna ask sarah once again uh if you could tell us where what what we are the vote or someone frame the vote we're about to take so vote lay out the options uh just so that i can understand it i again and i want to go on the record i do not support the health and safety plan because it's already there not that i don't support it it's that it's already there so i don't know how we why we need to mandate something that's already there and i think that's that's my hang up but if you could just help me understand someone uh what we're voting on uh and in those intricacies and then that'll that'll guide my decision sure i'll try to do that well and and let me um i'm sorry but i want to say this if because my colleague would represent it's simple right i would represent that it's complex and so if it's simple then it should be simply explained here if it's complex to explain here then it's complex to explain as someone's come walking in your door and you have a split second to do so so that's all i'm saying is i i would represent it's complex and so if it is difficult to uh frame then i understand that and i agree but i'll stop and then we'll vote okay all right so this is for council to take two actions one is to extend the state of disaster um the disaster declaration through december 31st 2020 um the second is to adopt a new order of council and that is all the items that i had pulled up on the screen um in that pdf document and then the order that you'd also receive through email at 5 pm there are a number of items that are contained in that order that order would be in effect through december 31st through the end of this calendar year one of those items is to continue to require that businesses have a health and safety plan that plan must reference the governor's order that requires that individuals wear face coverings unless they can socially distance they must have signage posted um that references the governor's current orders and requirements to inform the employees and their public of those governor's order requirements and that's the best summary i can do this quickly i'm sure we can work on it further um when we're just getting up to the bar all right any other questions yes mayor pro tem just a point to clear out just one one point so currently our notice requirement that's on the door right now does it mention the governor's orders it it does not have to no so now we're adding that let me look at the one more time just the language so i answer your question correctly it does not have to specifically i would say and i'm just gonna reference the attorneys next to me does not have to specifically say ga 29 but it does have to have reference to their health and safety plan which incorporates ga 29 so if it if they already had signs up that required face coverings i believe that would meet the intent of this thank you well that's interesting um because if they already have signs up that require face coverings that was based upon our requirement to have them have that requirement in their signs it could originally um there's a number of different ways businesses are approaching this a lot of companies um just at their various levels have adopted their own company policies in regards to requiring face coverings and stores regardless of local or state orders okay so then that incorporates that language where it says incorporates the governor's orders that's not required to be on the sign that just has to be somewhere in that ordinance that they in their plan in their plan okay all right okay all right we have a motion and second any other questions all right uh council member davis how say you i council member melzer aye council member briggs yes council member armature yes council member ryan all right council member our main mayor pro tem all right i mean it's it's it's two terrible decisions yeah yeah well i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna go with no just because i think we need to i agree with the the the uh time frame but i think the business plan i think we we've moved past that so i'm going to be a no on that but it passes six to one uh so that motion carries six to one and now we're going to look at agenda item two b consider approval of a resolution of the city of denton authorizing the city manager or his designee to execute a letter of commitment to transfer funds from the city of denton cares act funding to the dent independent school district to purchase remote learning technology and declaring an effective date we have one person making a comment on our online online forum and they were in support of this item and that was this we are calling id 20-1933 yes council member davis mayor just wanted to put on the record that i'm recusing from this item okay all right thank you council member davis all right uh we got a presentation yes no no presentation just going to review the the item briefly david gaines assistant city manager uh this item as mentioned was for operation connectivity which is a program through the texas education agency tea and um and directly with denton isd didn't isd approach us approached us in advance of a deadline they have for this program asking us to partner with them and send some of our cares act funding over to them to serve as a match for the program the program itself uh provides funds to to um to to pay for reliable devices and internet connection for students so you can see the allocation that was laid out by denton isd based on the number of students that we have from the city in the school district and a letter from from denton isd requesting the funding with operation connectivity if school districts partner with municipalities for their crf funding they get that match so that's what led to the conversation they get this incentive to use a crf fund so we also provided a letter from the city manager for that letter of commitment earlier today that was sent out from from mac as an example of what that letter could be to serve as a commitment we would then move forward in october with actual uh interlocal agreement transferring those funds to denton independent school district in addition to that ila we would also have a subsequent ila that would change our sro agreement which would make up for them some of the offset some of those costs where denton isd would contribute more to our sro program and and roughly an equivalent amount as we would be sending over in crf funds and those sro costs are also crf eligible the cares act eligible um cost so that made some sense to to frame it in that way so at this time open any questions that you may have that's member breaks not really a question just a comment i want to say thank you to the city manager and to staff for working on this i know that when we were having a discussion before on our order we were talking about the absence of connectivity for some of the students and it was a concern to us and i appreciate you continuing to work on that for the kids in in our district all right anybody else so my understanding is the the funding that we're approving if this gets approved of what was it 571,000 correct right right that that's somehow because that's coming out of our cares act funding but somehow we are realizing a cost savings from somewhere else is that the sros yeah so our current agreement for sros with denton isd they for the majority of those officers they pay 50 so we were already bringing back a revised sr agreement with denton isd in october when we bring that back we're going to change their percentage they're paying to us for those sros their their cost only for next year to make up some of that some of that difference but from the school district side by getting these crf funds they're able to leverage them further sure so it makes a lot of sense from both from both sides so do we know what the percentage is going to be coming back it'll probably be for those around 90 80 to 90 of those other officers would guess for that one year just for that one yeah okay the deal that we had had was that the city would be made whole and that the school district would be able to utilize our match to leverage another it's a one-to-one match so by the city donating 570 that's what they're going to be able to leverage an additional wonderful funding for our community i think that's great yeah i mean i think it's a great program to you know provide some devices and then high speed internet connectivity to people that probably don't have it so i appreciate that what a great what a great initiative and a great partnership i think that's what really makes uh didn't community really strong yeah and do we have uh i don't do we have a motion on that yes councilmember riggs i'll motion to approve all right do we have a second councilmember ryan second councilmember briggs i say you yes councilmember ryan aye mayor pro tem all right councilmember armater yes councilmember melzer aye mayor watts is an i motion carries six zero we could invite councilmember davis back to the meeting we'll go on to agenda item 2c id 20-1699 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the city manager or his designee to execute and deliver a public highway at grade crossing agreement between the city of denton and the united pacific railroad do we have a presentation on this is this item cursed yeah okay can you see the presentation now we can yep let's go let me go to full screen all right try this again good evening mr mayor members of council brian yon city traffic engineer here to talk about upr our quiet zones and specifically the mckinney group what we're referred to as the mckinney group we are pursuing quiet zones at four locations along this rail line mckinney hickory sycamore and prairie so for three of those crossings the mckinney crossing the prairie crossing and the sycamore crossing we are installing raised medians 70 plus feet from the crossing itself away from the crossing this prevents vehicles from driving around the arms when they're in the lowered position but at hickory we're going with a little bit a little bit more intensive crossing there they are having to reconstruct and we're adding some additional crossing devices and in order to do that the railroad will do the work and the city will reimburse to the tune of 597 000 so that is what the agreement in front of you tonight is to cover we have two options we approve the agreement and move toward the completion of the quiet zone or we deny the agreement and we stop them in implementation of the quiet zones and they and they work as a system so hickory is in the middle so if hickory doesn't go the other three can't go either our staff's recommendation is the approval the agreement and moving forward with the implementation of the four locations and i'm happy to answer any questions might have questions councilmember melzer how do you get a breakthrough i mean we've been for this for years what happened i have seen communication in the file from 2007 so yes this has been in this has been in the works for a while we finally got an agreement and a price and we have the money set aside we're ready to move forward on all the implementation of all four crossings so yes we're it's taking a while but we're here great we owe our friends at the council government some some thanks for helping break the large jam yes great that's great that's what those organizations is everybody working together councilmember armature then councilmember breaks that's just curious there any callers no no no uh councilmember riggs like he answered one of my questions which i think he said 2007 right um that's a that's a pretty long time and it's the oldest communication i saw yes yeah um this is the the one section you called the mckinney crossing but isn't there another like i guess phase two it goes further down mingo towards into district two is that correct there's another group we call the frame group it starts with frame pertain uh willis uh noddingham fish trap and so that particular group is on hold until we get the uh rodell extension plans a little further along so that we can because then what we're one of the items that we're incorporating into that that rodell mingo reconstruction is we're relocating the crossing from will i think it's willis to rodell and then rodell is going to now tie in across the tracks as a basically a two-lane roadway on one side and potentially a four-lane roadway on the other but until those plans are a little further along we're not really ready to move forward with the implementation of those quiet zones and so after this item is approved i'm sorry mayor may i continue sure as long as we're staying on posting yeah this is about the item before us once it's approved tonight what is the timeline where we would see actual work being done so we'll on the on three of the crossings we will uh we'll be ready to move very quickly the prairie sycamore and mckinney crossings we will work with the railroad on the timeline for hickory that we've got work to do and they've got work to do so it's a coordination effort i don't have a discrete timeline today but i can we can certainly bring back our our put in a friday report once we've identified that timeline with the railroad this is just the first hurdle we've got to clear get them an assigned agreement and i think a thousand dollar check and they're ready to start talking to us and a little bit more earnest thank you yeah i only ask because i know a lot of people are excited about this and so but may i make a motion sure i'll make a motion to approve all right we have a motion uh council member armature all right we have motion in a second a councilman brings i'll say you on the agenda item yes council member armature yes council member melzer i think everyone would like to second if they could but i'll just settle for saying aye council member ryan aye council member davis aye mayor protem all right i think 2007 when that first that last that one of those initial emails was my first year on council many many years ago the mayor is an eye motion carries seven zero move on to agenda item d which is consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of denton extending the civil service line of duty injury leave of absence of office of denton police officer urbano rodriguez for one full year at full pay and providing an effective date we've had two people make comments two are in support of this item and we have no callers waiting is there a staff presentation on this or is it just up for council it is chief dixon just walked in okay all right good evening mayor council frank dixon chief of police be talking to you tonight can you see it on the screen yet yes okay i can't see i can't see you you're you're i think your camera might be off there you are how about now good to see you chief i have a face for radio but that's we'll be discussing tonight a extended leave request for officer urbano rodriguez if council remembers we talked about this a little bit last week with deputy city attorney mike cronic when he did a presentation so i'll be asking for an extension of one year and that's going to be based on section 143.073 the line of duty illness or injury leave of absence provision that is in chapter 143 and at the end of this next period my hope is that he will reach his maximum maximum mmi at the end of it and he'll be in some condition to come back in some type of capacity whether we can keep him as a civilian employee i think the prospect of him coming back as a full police officer is pretty slim at this point but as he continues to progress i'm hopeful that we can bring him back at least as a civilian a civilian capacity this time next year so as you know his first one year leave of absence expires on october 30th of this year and i'll be asking for it to be extended for one more year at full at full pay and the actuals from this last year and what we're estimating for the next year is about the same there's like a one thousand dollar difference or or less in it and it's actually going down a little bit and pretty short just kind of an overview and a review of what the information you got last week okay all right any questions for the chief i see none uh chair would entertain action council member melzer i'll certainly move approval and just comment that very happy to as i know we all are to do whatever we can for this brave officer who who shows what all of our police are willing to face in the ordinary performance of their duty that they're that they're on the front line risking you know risking danger for us and i i move approval with gratitude all right council member breaks council member breaks i will i will second to all of that okay all right uh we have a motion to second council member melzer how say you hi council member breaks yes council member davis aye mayor protem all right council member armature yes council member ryan all right yeah and and i'm gonna i'm gonna i approve that and chief i just want to tell you and the city manager um thank you so much for all y'all's tenacity and perseverance and and getting uh the things that officer rodriguez needs in the form of the the van and the things that were listed in that memo thank you so much for your commitment to do that because i think it's going to provide a great opportunity to really allow him to obtain the maximum rehabilitation that he's able to and i just i want to thank tiffany thompson i just i just want to thank the whole team quite frankly because i know it's been uh challenging with something that this is complex but you you guys the team has really stood in the gap and i really do appreciate that thank you for that and and i i'm sure the family appreciates it and i just can't say enough about that so thank you all so that motion carries uh seven zero we've got one more uh at least related to this it's agenda item e id 20-1934 consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of denton authorizing the city manager to pay certain expenses related to the line of duty injury police officer urbano rodriguez and providing an effective date and there's no staff presentation but tiffany's on the line as well and we can certainly answer any questions if you have any okay and i wanted to say we've got uh one online comment in support of this item chair council member davis mayor i move approval all right council member ryan a second uh council member briggs um before uh this goes i just want to offer a public apology personally um for everything that that we have witnessed and seen online and just thank the residents for caring and reaching out and i know that we have a really great community who cares about their officers and that has been duly noted so thank you all right um who made that uh motion and council member ryan you seconded it correct all right council member davis how say you aye council member ryan aye council member melzer aye council member briggs yes uh mayor pro tem aye council member robertor okay uh council member melzer you already expressed your vote yes yeah yeah okay uh mayor watts is an eye that motion carries a seven zero did i miss anybody sometimes i feel like i miss somebody all right we're going to move on to agenda item f which is uh id 20-1538 consider adoption of an ordinance amending chapter 18 motor vehicles and traffic article 3 speed of vehicles again good evening mayor members of the council brian young city traffic engineer can you all see the presentation yes okay so tonight we're here to talk about a a consolidation of the speed limits in the city of denton this ordinance is the first step in a continuing evaluation of our existing speed limits and and the way the city wants to move towards proper speed zoning uh and i'm just going to give you some quick background here the texas transportation code establishes a prima facie speed for all roadways for most of the city streets it is considered 30 unless you're on a freeway which then you've got either a 70 mile an hour or 60 mile an hour if it's got a number or not but the background speed on most of the roads in the city of denton is 30 miles an hour unless we decide to change it so we have the ability the the transportation code gives us the authority to alter those speed limits if we can prove that they are that the new posted speed is more appropriate than 30 miles an hour the way that the city has done this historically is on a road-by-road basis so you've got a lot of ordinances that address a single section of roadway and basically this leads to a lot of ordinances it's hard to track it's hard to maintain an inventory so if you go to the municipal code online right now these are the streets that you will see that have a non 30 mile an hour speed limit if you drive the city of denton these are the speeds that you will see that have a non 30 mile an hour speed limit so one of the things we wanted to do with this ordinance was capture everything that's on the ground all the everything that's been passed in a previous ordinance and bring it into a single document and i think it was attached so you've got an idea what it looks like and so that helps us with it just simplifies the not only adoption of the ordinances but it helps in enforcement and it helps us maintain some kind of consistency as we bring these ordinances and these speed limits to you so this version and this is a key factor this this first version of a comprehensive speed zone and ordinance does not alter any posted or existing speed limit we're simply cataloging what we have on the ground and on the books into a single document so this is a kind of a starting point from which we're going to work so our next steps are in a in i think it's october 27th currently we will bring forth a work session to discuss speed zoning and speed limits in denton this will talk about the the data collection that efforts that we need to undergo and the the processes by which we will evaluate speed so we will talk about the historical method that's the 85th percentile that's the way text dot still does it so you go out and measure how fast people are driving and the speed that 85 are more driving is the speed limit that's the default so we can look at all these different methods there's a lot of new thinking that's going into the establishment of speeds and speed zoning we'll collect our data we'll again compare our findings with what we think are appropriate we'll develop updates to that ordinance and we'll bring it back to you for consideration and adoption so this is going to be six to eight months at least before we have all the data that we need and that we've had an opportunity to look at the each of the roadway sections and identify what we feel is an appropriate speed limit for that section of roadway it may be the same it may be higher may be lower but i don't think we've looked at it in a holistic sense if ever it's been quite some time if we have so again this is the first step we just wanted to catalog all of the existing speed limits and so we can prepare a that starting point and move forward to the adoption of what we feel are appropriate speed limits in the city so i will stop sharing and answer any questions you might have any any questions council member melser i guess it might be more of an aesthetic issue than anything else but why wouldn't we just do an ordinance after we've done the work session and the studies and know what we want to move to what's the benefit of passing really a benefit for staff and we just wanted to make sure that this was the appropriate process and then in the path forward it it also helps in enforcement because it's it's difficult to if if a speed limit is contested i feel you know the the way the important i think the prima facie is it's the speed at which a normal or prudent driver would travel under the conditions and present i've been in in court defending those and if you don't have the document easily at hand and the some of the required information that makes it a little bit more of a challenge okay all right i saw some other hands council member riggs does this have any relation to the speed study that we approved not too long ago or is does it work in tandem uh so like that there was an overall i think right citywide we did a we're that's the uh the data collection effort you approved our contract with the vendor so we now have a contract by which we can go out and collect the speed and volume data it's kind of a starting point for us to examine the and determine the appropriate speed limits okay um that's just go ahead oh i was just going to say i think this is a good process that way it doesn't create all this work for you and then you bring it back to council and you know there's not that consensus on on moving forward so i'm i'm definitely in favor i will tell you one of the most um comments i get is speeding in neighborhoods so um hopefully this can be addressed with that okay council member davis thank you mayor brian thank you for pulling this together and coming through our our code and and you and your staff getting all this together in one place i think there's a lot of benefit to that as you described and with that i'll move approval all right we have a move a motion for approval i have a second council member armature i second and i just want to say i'm really looking forward to uh this work session i love that we're going to be talking about the national association transportation officials recommendations and this is just a wonderful um first step to this whole discussion so thank you for your okay all right council member davis how say you aye council member armature yes council member briggs yes council member melzer i just want to comment for clarity we're not saying by this that we think these are the right speed limits it's the beginning of a process we may well end up with something very different but i'll vote aye council member ryan aye mayor protem all right mayor wassup nine motion carries seven zero we'll move on to agenda item what is that 2g 3g 2g 2g which is id 20-1549 we have one person who made a comment online that was in support of this item and it's considered option of an ordinance establishing the rates for water and water service good evening mayor city council members nick vinson assistant director finance let me turn my video on really quick uh so mayor i have a short presentation i'll actually cover items g h i j and l i don't know if you want to call those items to allow for questions we will need individual votes for each of them um i'll call them yep i'll call them uh so we're going to go with an agenda item 2h id 20-1551 consider adoption of an ordinance establishing the rates for solid waste and recycling we have one person who called who made an online comment and they were in support agenda item 2i consider adoption of an ordinance establishing the schedule of rates for electric service providing for repealer and that's id 20-1553 and then agenda item j 2j is id 20-1628 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of dent adopting a schedule of fees for cemeteries and use of certain park facilities and we'll take an individual vote on all those all right bear with me here i pull the presentation of you okay all right mayor city council members i'm back i got the presentation up let me pull it up here um so the utility presentations you've seen before but i'll run them really quick with you um we'll talk about the water rates today that are in front of you for adoption the solid waste rates the electric uh fund rates parks recreation police and allow for questions at the end um if you have questions at each one of these utilities or in parks or recreation or police there is staff on the phone that'll be happy to answer your question um or it may be something i can address also myself yeah we'll just go through this we're gonna let it let him get through his presentation council members until we uh ask questions uh so real quick uh the water utility um as reviewed of city council and the public utility board we are recommended a two percent rate decrease for residential and commercial customers within the city of denton for water service we did present two options to the public utility board to implement this rate decrease option one was a cost of service decrease based on that model that we use every year as part of the budgeting process option two was an across the board decrease that applied that rate decrease evenly across the facility in volume charge we actually did receive a recommendation from the public utility port seven to zero to implement this rate rate decrease based on the cost of service model so that is option one so the rate ordinance is in front of you today for consideration considers this rate decrease in the following manner so as you can see the facility charges the most common meter for residential customers which is a three quarter inch meter we're looking to decrease that rate from 16 to 1584 and the first tiered rate within water structure of rates is zero to 15 000 gallons and this is built on thousand dollar or thousand gallon increments for water customers from 415 to 405 and the second groups of rates is commercial customers and this based on the two inch meter and the current facility charge is fifty one dollars and fifty cents and option one that rate would go to fifty dollars and ninety nine cents and commercial customers are built per thousand gallon that are actually grouped in tiers as residential rates and so the rate would go from 445 to 434 and as i previously said these are consistent with the presentation that's presented to you about a month ago and these are contractual rate adjustments in the water utility and there are two we're looking to make changes to based on the agreements with these entities the first one is the wholesale raw water service to the upper trinity regional water district and this rate is set at 85 percent of the dallas wholesale rate that rate currently is point seven four zero one with the rate adjustment to point seven five seven eight and the wholesale raw water pass through through the upper trinity regional water district through lake chattman and the rate is currently point zero two seven zero based on the cpi adjusted for the month of june this rate would go to point zero two seven five uh really quick the solid waste rate adjustments that we are recommending this fiscal year um the valet shared service for commercial customers this is the new service implement around the downtown area currently the tier two rate is 138.28 we are recommending this rate go to 74.16 decreasing that rate based on that cost of service model that we ran this fiscal year and the next one is the yard waste service collection for commercial customers similar to residential we are looking to charge 70 to five dollars per hour for this service and build on 15 minute increments and then the residential rate decrease has been discussed with the city council and public utility bill over the last couple months for the standard cart customer this would be a one dollar decrease going from 21.51 to 20.51 for a large cart customer slightly more you can see it going from 26.26 to 25.04 and then the additional large cart going from 17.38 to 16.57 and the gate rate for non-city didn't resident this is not impacting the city didn't customers this is non-city didn't residents and businesses this rate would increase from 46 to 48 we are looking to increase that sludge and dewater rate as previously talked about with the city council from 46 to 50 and i do want to point out there is a cpi rate adjustment to this wholesale there's contract agreements we do have in place with those haulers that are hauling into our landfill facility their rates will go up 2.3 percent and this does account for an additional 400,000 dollars in revenue in the utility a really quick some electric rates we are looking to discontinue we're not looking to have many rate changes we are looking to do away with some rates that are no longer being utilized and the first one being the residential renewable service rider which is also referred to as rg um currently all customers do receive 100 renewable energy and this rate is no longer needed in the rate ordinance we are recommending to remove it the second one will be the weekend service also referred to as wk we're looking to discontinue this rate a recent audit did reveal that customers were hitting their monthly peak outside of those designated hours next one be the downtown decorative lighting ddl and this rate no longer is applicable the dark fiber we're looking to discontinue the commercial renewable energy services rider also referred to as cgr similar to residential commercial customers do receive 100 renewable energy and no additional charge and then independent wholesale generator rate i'm doing to put out 186 residential customers are on the rg rate they would actually have an annual savings of 47 dollars and 36 cents we are looking to make some changes to the parks and recreation fees this fiscal year coming up in 2021 we are looking to reduce the cemetery burial permit late fee from 500 to 100 which is a 400 dollar decrease we're looking to remove the 500 cemetery stone permit late fee and then we are looking to update the wording currently it does state 24 hours notice regarding burial permitting and then we're looking to change this to 48 hours notice for clarity so there was some confusion with this rate earlier this year we're looking to clarify that for citizens to eliminate confusion and then police fees we're not looking to changing these fees what staff is looking to do is formalize the fees that are currently being charged within the police department get this in front of city council and seek your approval so we have grouped them into different groups the first one being public safety training center second one being firearms range the next one being special events for unt officers off duty and private event pay the motor vehicle escort for hire and i'll review these fees with you on the next couple slides so the first group is the public safety training center you can see the classroom fee of 100 a day i won't go through every one of these i'll kind of skip down a little bit you can see the driving simulator is 200 a day and the firearms range the range only is 100 a day the range of supplies is 150 um unt fees you can see a police officer is 55 an hour a police supervisor is 60 an hour and then a dispatcher is 35 an hour i'm moving on to the next slide officer off duty and private event pay and you can see a police officer is 45 an hour a police supervisor is 50 i'm skipping down the page a little bit you can see a squad car be 20 an hour and then those motor vehicle escort for hire fees you can see export license fee for 160 annually um is also what we're recommending this year and i will pull this down for questions okay any questions we're gonna any questions on g we're gonna we're gonna vote on these individually so we're going to take discussions on them individually so we don't just hold up four of them for just a discussion councilmember melzer you got one on agenda item g yeah uh sort of just a checkman confirmation point that we can do that rate decrease on water service and still fund the increase in water treatment capacity to keep up with their growth that's a great question councilmember melzer and absolutely the planning expansion is accounted for so the upcoming fiscal year we do have 18 million dollars for plan improvements for the water utility and we have pushed that lake expansion project out there to fiscal year 2024 but that project is included in five in the 10-year forecast so absolutely we can do both of those thank you very much councilmember briggs yeah on the solid waste proposed rate changes councilmember briggs i want to take these one at a time so if there's no more questions on g we got to take separate votes so we're just going to take the discussions on the ones we're going to vote on and then we'll just go down the line this is item g i thought it was solid waste well it's in the presentation it's right after water well i know but solid waste is agenda item h oh okay well it was in my presentation under utility rates and fees under g so okay i'll wait okay all right any questions on it on water uh and water and water service is that correct that solid waste is on the next agenda item that's correct mayor it'll be the very next one councilmember briggs if you have a question regarding solid waste it will be okay all right all right uh councilmember ryan move approval of item g councilmember davis i'll second councilmember ryan how say you on agenda item g id 20-1549 aye councilmember davis aye councilmember briggs yes uh mayor protem aye councilmember armater yes councilmember melzer aye mayor wass's an aye motion carries seven zero okay councilmember briggs your question for on the solid waste agenda item okay um yeah well it's in the same presentation we just saw but it's yard waste service under commercial it's now 75 per hour can you explain that a little bit i thought that that was already included um before when we talked about our updates so um sure um i can pull it up or i can address your question without the presentation um but we did we did discuss it last year councilmember briggs is part of the budgeting process and that was the residential yard waste collection service um we actually communicated and talked about craft bags and cart collection along with that service this is for commercial customers this is a new service that solid waste will be offering and that we currently did not have a rate in place for so this will be a new service that solid waste will be offering so for yard so may i mayor of course i'm just trying to understand so if it's a commercial business and they have a lot of leaves or limbs it kind of operates in the same way from my understanding that is absolutely correct um brian burner um possibly be on the phone they can address that question about the operational side of it um okay well i just just wondered like there's nothing in place now so if we don't really have a way to address that um commercial yard waste i was just curious about it councilmember riggs this is brian burner director of solid waste uh what this program is specifically designed for is those commercial um operations which uh exists within neighborhoods think of the old house on the corner that was converted to a dentist office or the church that sits among the neighborhood and they are on a very very small what we call carted commercial service they looked and they act very similar to a residential but they don't enjoy all of the opportunities that that other uh residential customers involve so when church members come out and you know trim the trees or the dentist or the doctor on a weekend comes and trims his trees or most his yard it allows them the opportunity to get that material picked up unlike a large business who would have a a traditional yard maintenance company come in and and manage that material so this is specifically identified to work in those neighborhoods that we can have the whole street cleaned as opposed to the one i saw in the middle of the street okay thank you thank you thank you thank you brian any other questions on agenda and item h seeing none chair would entertain a motion council member ryan move approval council member davis second motion and a second for id 20-1551 which is agenda item 2h council member ryan i'll say you all right council member davis aye council member briggs yes mayor potem all right council member armature yes council member melzer aye mayor watts is an aye the motion carries seven zero i uh we'll have a vote on i agenda item 2i id 20-1553 any questions chair would entertain a motion council member ryan approval council member davis deja vu second yeah uh council member ryan has say you on id 20-16 i'm sorry 20-1553 agenda item 2i aye council member davis aye council member armature yes council member melzer aye mayor potem all right council member briggs yes mayor watts is an i motion carries id 20-1553 unanimously agenda item 2j id 20-1682 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city didn't uh schedule fees for sedentary and you already called that one but uh chair would entertain a motion or questions council member davis i'm gonna move approval but i also want to thank staff for looking at this more closely we talked about it quite a bit in last budget year these don't seem like a big deal but it matters for a lot of people at just the wrong time so i'm gonna move approval council mayor armature yes i was really pleased with the solution to the cemetery issues that came up last time i just have a question that maybe staff can help help me with um i'm trying to find where exactly in the ordinance are the uh the the fees for the firing range because i had questions about those council member that'll be the next item the mayor calls okay okay okay just wanted to check to check okay got it all right uh council member uh council member uh council member melzer i'll second all right so we have a motion by council member davis and a second by council member melzer council member davis i say you aye council member melzer aye council member ryan all right council member armature yes mayor protem aye council member briggs yes uh mayor watts is an i uh so now we're down to agenda item 2k which is considered is that right yeah an ordinance of the city of denton amending chapter 25 street sidewalks in public places mayor 2l did i miss one yeah 2l for the police department fees what oh uh okay so i called the but we didn't take a vote for k yet right we skipped k in the presentation so but we still got to take a vote on that is that correct yes i'm just saying you did g h i j and l on the presentation so if you wanted to continue with that oh okay i had k and got you got you thank you mac appreciate it i was uh i think we're gonna probably have to take a break here soon because my my mind sort of got a little confused so now we are on l which we had in the presentation so then council member armature you had a question i believe on that is that right on the firing range yeah yeah so um you know i was uh i i first heard it in the in the uh the friday report there was something about this um and i was surprised to find that we were going to be uh using the the firing range for public use i had remembered um in discussions uh you know when the when this was up for discussion uh with with council uh before the bond election that this was going to be just for the police department and you know i appreciated seeing in the friday report uh i saw that this is something that's unusual for for cities to do so i was wondering if kind of if someone from staff could speak to this decision and when it was made uh you know this was certainly when i found out about it just recently um but i would like to know kind of the history of this decision the reason for it and uh just just just some more background about this well and and i certainly want to give staff a chance to answer that but i don't remember in the discussion that we had last year during the bond program that this facility would not be open to other law enforcement it was not going to be open to the public i do remember that but i don't ever remember it being stated that it was going to be exclusively for the denton police department is that so yeah staff can answer your question and answer mine because it seems to be a difference of opinion in that recollection yeah we've got chief dixon and some of his staff members on the line i'm sure they can clear that up and so is this so just to clarify so is this not for so a member of the public can't friend this facility or other okay we're getting some kind of feedback um chief are you there that is chief dixon uh mayor council councilmember armaker thank you for that question the fees are charged for other law enforcement agencies that utilize the range and the training facility it's not for the general public at all okay okay thank you so much for clarifying and so if if just someone could speak to the comment in the uh someone's got their yeah councilmember armator is your question regarding the use by other law enforcement agencies you thought that when we first discussed this that that was not part of the facility and what i was going to ask and someone's someone's got their uh their background chief i think it might be your phone is there a way to uh i'm not sure uh yes we're getting some feedback from somebody go go ahead councilmember armater okay so i'll try to be brief oh there that's better um yeah no i i was just just wondering if if somebody from staff either chief or somebody else could speak to there was a mention in the friday report that this kind of use is is rare um and i thought i it was not clear to me i thought that it was referring to referring to you you just you just faded off councilmember armater just you just faded off yeah you said something about that this use is rare and that's when i lost you okay so there was a mention in the friday report that that this kind of use is rare i was wondering if staff i'm not sure who who wrote the friday report but what is rare about then about the use for other uh law enforcement okay do we have a someone on the line who can answer that this is still chief dixon i don't i didn't do the friday report so i couldn't speak to that specifically i do know when we're looking at the fees we looked at other agencies in the metroplex and like-size agencies and there was a variance from them charging a lot more than we are and then some agencies not charging anything so we're on the very low end of uh charging fees for the use because of the partnerships that we have with other law enforcement agencies that utilize it so i don't know what language they put in the friday report i think it might have been it was very rare for them to charge such a low amount potentially i can't speak to that part of it yeah yeah i guess council member armature when you say that the staff report said it was rare what is the it that is supposedly rare well it was it was confusing to me so i was just wondering is someone the person who uh i can i can find it maybe it was in the agenda description but i'm remembering from the friday report but it was something this has clarified my confusion it was something that led me to believe so i'm glad i'm glad to know that it's not and then i was just wondering what is this um this uh part of the use that is so rare but but i'm willing to let the discussion go on and i can okay find it don't want to make too big a deal out of it okay all right we'll move forward in uh council member briggs yeah so i i just i read just to clarify these have already been charged and established for the most part there's just not an ordinance so this is just kind of clarifying that and cleaning it up into an ordinance is that correct that is correct council member breaks that's just cleaning it up put it into an ordinance that's absolutely correct okay and just go ahead so do the um do the fees from this ordinance do they go back into the police budget or into a general fund um the fees from from that is charged by the police department will come into the general fund as a revenue which the police department is part of the general fund so hopefully that answers your question it comes into the general fund where the expenses are for the police department okay thank you any other questions council member mayor pro tem move approval second council member melser i'll second we have a motion and a second for 2l uh mayor pro tem hasayi all right council member melser aye council member ryan aye council member riggs yes council member armater uh no council member davis aye mayor wass is an aye motion carries six to one so we've got to go back to k is that correct all right k is considered option let's take a little five minute break and we'll come back to k let's take a five minute break welcome back to this meeting of the city council it's 921 on september 22nd 2020 we are on agenda item 2k uh it there's some question about maybe 2k was included in the presentation i know we had something about cemeteries but that's also in j so is staff available for a question i really don't see uh other than city attorney oh there he is yeah um mayor you go ahead uh good evening nick vinson assistant director of finance again we don't have a formal presentation mcgary packin is on the phone to answer any questions that you have um but this no this was not included in the original presentation so i thought okay any questions on k all right chair would entertain action mayor pro tem move approval second council member melzer second all right we have a motion and second for agenda item 2k uh id 20-1624 mayor pro tem how say you all right council member melzer aye council member ryan all right okay somehow i just lost the feed somebody's got a okay there we go let's see where am i uh melzer ryan council member davis aye council member briggs council member briggs yes all right council member amater yes all right uh mayor wass's and i motion carries seven zero moving on to agenda item m2m id 20-1903 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton amending the fiscal year 2019-20 budget to allow for adjustments to the electric fund by three million dollars to purchase the landfill gas to energy facility we got one person making a comment and is in support staff presentation quick one yes mayor we have a short presentation actually one slide to share with you today oh now that's that's that's right there that's good keep it as short as possible for you this evening so as part of the budgeting process we go through each fiscal year about this time and we we look at the current year budget the appropriations approved by city council by different funds and make sure we have appropriate appropriations to get us through the remainder of the fiscal year so this one is for the electric fund cassiogdon will come up and present one for the risk fund after this presentation but given some of the changes and the approvals of different decisions and the electric fund this year approved by the public utility we're in city council we do feel like we need a budget amendment for the electric fund of three million and this will go to offset the increased roi that was approved by city council earlier this year increasing it from three and a half to six percent so we'd look to put 1.9 million towards appropriations towards that expense increase and then 1.1 million will go towards the dt facility purchase with the remainder of that 2.75 purchase coming from the operating budget savings okay all right if we pull the slide down it's my understanding from the city attorney that this requires at least five affirmative votes is that correct that is correct all right council member briggs uh what year was that uh lanefield gas uh storage put into the landfill like how how old is is that the i would have to ask brian burner or tony when they'd answer that question it may be something we have to get back with you council member briggs on i don't know if we have that date in front of us right now right on the line okay uh council member briggs that uh has been at the landfill for approximately 17 years okay thank you i'll move go ahead council member riggs i'll move approval council member melzer which i wanted to ask when when are we expecting to hear about the alternative beneficial use um opportunities if there are any for the landfill gas uh council member melzer we do have a presentation scheduled for october 6 to come to council the uh to the pub on the 28th thank you very much i'll second we have a motion and a second for agenda item id 20-1903 council member riggs i'll say you yes council member melzer aye council member armeter yes council member ryan aye council member davis aye mayor protem aye mayor watts is a nine motion carries seven zero agenda item 2n id 20-1779 consider an adoption excuse me consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas amending the fiscal year 2019 2020 budget an annual program of services of the city of denton to allow for adjustments to the risk fund of three million dollars good evening mayor council cassiogin director of finance let me pull up the presentation i have two slides i'm sorry oh boy oh boy here we go so similar to the electric budget um we've reviewed the risk expenses and do not have um we feel like enough expenditure authority to make make it through the end of this fiscal year we're asking to increase our budget by three million dollars um we've had additional workers compensation claims litigation expenses property damage claims insurance policy increases and then additional expenses for professional services and just so council is aware of the claim process all the claim expenses are paid from the risk operating budget and then if if excess coverage applies that um that policy will reimburse the city for the claim expenses over our threshold and then those reimbursements are received in the revenue fund and then the claims claims are then allocated to the department to recover the cost in the in the next fiscal year and that is all i have all right any questions chair would entertain action on this agenda item council member ryan move approval i second council member briggs i'll second all right on agenda item id 20-1779 we've got a motion and second for approval council member ryan houseau aye council member briggs yes council member amater yes mayor protem all right council member melzer aye council member davis aye uh mayor is an aye motion carries seven zero agenda item uh 20 is considered adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas authorizing the city to manage to execute the certified local government sub-grant fiscal year 2021 grant letter of intent for historic denton this is id 20-1928 is there a staff presentation on this i have a brief presentation mayor i'm going to pull up okay so the item uh in in front of you tonight for consideration is a request from historic denton inc sorry one second from historic denton inc for a letter of intent in order to submit for a certified local government grant through the texas historic commission if you recall this item was on the agenda last week however it was postponed to this evening as there was a change in the in the request initially the the very initial sample letter of intent that we had we had received mentioned a a specific area to be surveyed the john b denton i'm sorry it mentioned john b denton as well as the north texas state neighborhood because that was a change it was it was not consistent with the with the agenda posting just a little background of this grant it is a two-step process the first is a letter of intent while it's required to be submitted before september 30th it is not a mandatory submittal it is highly recommended but it is not mandatory to apply for the grant and then the actual grant itself is due by november 2nd just a brief background august 12th is when we originally received the the request we had a work session on the 25th there were some questions and clarifications that council had requested we had provided an isr on september 4th and then september 11th we did receive those responses from from the from the requester however there were two still two questions that that were not answered and then again as i mentioned at the opening this item was postponed from september 15th to this evening a couple considerations the letter of intent was changed to show that there would be no specified survey area staff did reach out to thc because we had a concern regarding this and thc's response was while the historic resource survey is an eligible project if the applicant has not chosen a survey area then it would not be selected for funding and then staff after that did request from the applicant that he provide provide an area we did not get that i believe he did send it either late late friday it might have been saturday morning when we actually did get it but it was after letting him know that we would have a hard time supporting it given the statements from from thc as well as the specificity that was requested by by council at that work session on the 25th and then just wanted to mention that again this is by signing the lever letter of intent the city has not formally committed to sign the the grant application there would be a separate ordinance and agreement and then the city auditor did provide i won't i won't read verbatim but she did provide also some some input on on the request i believe this was included as part of that isr and then while staff recommended approval on september 15th we do not recommend approval at this time um the letter again as mentioned was changed to no no specified area and then again thc stated without that area it would not be selected and with that staff be happy to answer questions not only am i on mute i'm not even on camera let me let me start out here first just with a couple questions so there was a change in the original letter of intent to not specify an area in the second you contacted the it was a thc and they said hey yeah an overall survey general kind of survey project is eligible but they never choose those right correct they need to have a specified area specified area and that they would not select it they would not select it and then you said that after the agenda posting you received what now again uh we we did receive a i did receive an email from historic dent inc um saying that the that that he had also reached out to thc and had given an area of of of of um that he would like to survey and it seemed that that thc was okay with that area um again we did not follow up with thc but at that point the the agenda was posted and and it was we were unable to change it so we're essentially at the same place we were sure okay and then but what i'm seeing is the auditor internal auditor said that there's some other information that we need before they feel comfortable with it is that is that what i'm understanding that was that was prior to formally submitting endorsing the the um endorsing them as a third party administrator for the grant which is what we're being asked to do today uh today is is for the letter to to authorize a letter of intent then they would then if that was approved um if thc was okay with it if we didn't hear anything back negatively um then then the next step would be to bring forward most likely on the 20th of october both both in ordinance authorizing the signature for the grant delegating the third party and then uh executing an agreement to go along with that and that's when the auditor said that other information should be a it's part of that agreement correct okay and i believe she might be on the call yeah okay all right councilmember melzer you're on mute councilmember melzer how many projects has historic denton successfully done with thc uh in the city of denton i i'm not sure um i think there might be one that i know of i know the applicant or the the requester um is on the call so he would probably be best to answer that okay uh i mean i'm interested to know my impression is that there's more than one this i mean i'm aware of the fair haven uh which i believe is an orneal ford structure you know got you know recognition and tax benefits associated and now it's an operating facility i believe there's another uh national register district but uh yeah let me hear from the from the applicant okay applicant you on the line yes okay there's actually been three completed surveys one was um a listing of all o'neill ford structures in denton second one was a very large district around the calhoun middle school area and the third one which has been completed is uh the neighborhood just north of unt called the north texas state normal neighborhood okay so the request is for a fourth survey and if you don't mind may i clear up three items of confusion please because i got to be honest with you i'm very confused why this has become so difficult i am too so we established the collaboration with planning in april may june of 2018 and i received a map back from planning in june 2018 that i shared with thc to gain their approval if this would be acceptable for them so that's when this began second is thc funds directly so there's no relationship that historic denton is asking with the city and historic didn't does not represent the city so you know some of the questions that were asked seemed very impertinent to the topic at hand the third is that when richard contacted thc to ask the question about the area um i i think that thc thought that the question was being asked about the grant not the letter of intent so they responded based upon the grant if the grant doesn't indicate an area then you know that would be a problem so i just want to make sure i can answer but be be quick okay all right um council member armature so and i i think um uh i i think i understand what what this is about because so the presentation confused me council member armature i cannot hear you oh i'm gonna go to council member briggs because you're fading in and out i'm gonna come back to you i'm gonna come to council member briggs i'll come back to you because you're frozen right now so council member briggs okay yeah so um is there is there a this may be for the caller a current survey area of interest um for for the grant say the letter is approved when the when the grant is applied for that that area will be attached to is that kind of the process absolutely and but what i wanted to make sure about was that this would be satisfactory to thc because it's their funding so i got that approval after i received some emails on late friday and i kind i replied back to those emails you know specific to the map that was created in june 2018 and then i realized that maybe richard hadn't received that map so i sent it to him so he has a copy of that as well okay okay so thank you for that clarification so it was it was the right survey and i'm sorry mayor may i sure okay so the when we first this first came to us there was an area that was attached it was pulled off to verify with thc and then um was verified and now it's back but just didn't make it into the presentation correct because the thc preferred to put to fund a survey as opposed to completing the national register district application because you know it's already well in the phase so they said don't apply for that type of a grant because it it needs to focus on the things that we're willing to fund okay thank you for that clarification i appreciate it councilmember armater okay so i'll try again can people hear me okay now yeah you're gonna have to speak just a little louder just because i don't know if your speakers your microphone's away from me i mean you're just a little low volume so yeah okay yeah i've been having some technical difficulties um so anyway uh so question um for staff so when when you say that and so in the slide where it says that uh the texas historical commission requires a survey for a grant that's not for the letter of intent correct they don't require that for the letter of intent that's for a later stage in the process correct it's twofold so the the letter of intent introduces the project so it would identify that area that you're going to survey um i don't know why it would be any different from what you're submitting the letter of intent for should be the same that you're going to submit the grant application for and so we had a concern yeah yeah so i talked i talked to you i talked to the texas historical commission um and uh and i asked we had kind of played phone tag um and they kind of they cleared up some things for me weren't for me that i was not originally confused about until kind of i i heard i saw this presentation i've been confused by a number of things that are pretty long the way can you still not hear me no i can hear you i just i mean you're going to talk about the conversations you had with the historical commission i want us to get pretty concise about the issues are pretty clear here so if you could go ahead and make your comments okay yeah so my comment is that uh it that the uh letter of intent does not require a survey and i believe and so mr hunt is this what you were saying the letter of intent does not require a survey correct yes and so that is my understanding from the texas historical commission and so this is as i think what mr hunt is trying to explain uh so in other words the staff presentation has it wrong has the texas historical commission uh process wrong and talking with the texas historical commission would clear that up it's a pretty simple uh application process so i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna interrupt you for a second please forgive me because i'm a little frustrated because mr hunt you submitted a letter of intent that had a survey on it okay did you not the first time yes i did and then the thc asked that that be changed well the problem is mr hunt we sent a lot of questions out we got a lot we had to really work hard to get the answers back and to the questions that we had we didn't get answers to and that is the board structure and the board governance we had to basically look those up under public documents so i have no idea if the thc says you cannot have a survey on a letter of intent is that what you're representing that the thc is saying you you are prohibited from having a survey on a letter of intent no they said that they wanted to make sure that what was on letter of intent you know that would lead toward a grant would be something that they would select that because it's their funding i understand i think that the confusion on the two questions is that the assumption was made that historic didn't was representing the city no mr mr hunt that's not correct there was no assumption made of that i just want to ask for clarification you just made a statement that you talked contacted the texas historical commission and they said that the survey should not be on the letter of intent and did i misunderstand that yes you did misunderstand it the idea was that they are going to make a final determination for what they're willing to fund and that was why there was a change from the first one to the second one okay again i'm not getting i'm sorry i must be it must be late when you took off the survey on the second letter of intent i thought i heard you say you contacted the thc and they said no don't put the survey request on the letter of intent did they say that they did not say that they said that they wanted to make sure about what the area was that they were going to be funding now after i had conversations by email with staff i contacted the thc again and i said there has been some angst about where that survey area was and they said go back and look at the 2018 survey that they had already approved for historic than to perform and let the staff know that that's the area they're willing to do okay and this conversation occurred when late friday afternoon okay and we've been talking about this for two weeks i mean there's been emails and things going back for longer than that i believe is that correct correct all right so again my question is what was the reason for taking off the original survey that you had on the original letter of intent and not having a survey on the current letter of intent that was submitted to staff and that is in our presentation today it was an issue of what the thc was willing to direct their funding to and they didn't they wanted to fund a new project that they had already approved but they wanted to have internal conversations on what that area was going to be before i identified it and you and you learned of this on the conversation on friday no i provided the answer to where that survey was going to be to staff on friday so after staff told me that they were going to disapprove i contacted the thc and i said we have a problem it looks you know it appears that somehow someone's interpreted that you know i'm not being transparent so i said i need your help i need you to tell me do you really want me to submit what was approved in june 2018 and they said yeah go ahead and do that because it's already in the gis system that's owned by the city okay uh so what i'm understanding you to say when did you submit the new letter of intent to city staff that did not have the survey that did not have any survey on it after there was conversation about you know the assumption was that historic dunn was somehow representing the city to the thc okay clarification was put in well i don't understand how the representation of the city i'm just simply trying to understand when the second letter of intent was submitted number one when was it submitted and number two the original survey language was left off and so it was submitted without any requested survey area it's up to the thc to define what they're willing to fund and so the there was two items that were changed in the letter of intent one was to provide clarification that historic dunn does not represent the city of dunn and the city of dunn is not going to be providing matching funds the second was to match what thc wanted done and that was that they wanted their correct representation on the area that they were wanting to fund they did not want to find something that was already in process because the north texas state normal area is virtually completed so they were like that was the original that was what was originally on the first letter of intent was the north texas normal area what was the area on that was what was on the original area i'm glad to let richard verify that so i'm just curious i mean uh yeah i believe that's what it was but you know there's been so much angst over something that you know the dollar amount of this grant it's going to be between eight and ten thousand dollars that's that's a tenth of what the city spent for roman to go out and you know hire a contractor out of chicago to do a historic preservation plan well mr hunt i'm just trying to understand when we we had a we had a meeting on this and council asked for staff to present some questions and they were and i think that i think that's councils we have the right to do that and they were answered there were a couple that weren't answered and then when it came back there was also a change in the letter of intent so staff was trying to figure out exactly i mean staff did the research on who uh is on the board and also the board the governance structure because apparently yeah you've made that you've made that very clear just like you've made some comments when my wife went before the council about the board of ethics mr hunt that has nothing to do with what we're talking about well neither does it says nothing unrelated to the grant mr hunt you have asked us to execute a document in favor of you submitting a grant application to the texas historical commission is am i correct on that yes okay and you submitted that to us and we gave it due process and looked at it and we had some questions the council had questions it wasn't just one council member it was it was the body submitted these questions you answered them all those all those things were answered yes sir uh they were and well a couple of them weren't but that's okay we we got the answer to that i'm not sure why they weren't answered but we got the answer because they were not questions asked by council at the work session okay uh okay um anyway so then we get a letter staff gets a letter of intent that has removed the area and there's no area specified on the letter of intent the revised letter of intent that's what staff received is that is that am i right on that i mean or am i wrong the language was was given to me by thc that they wanted to make sure that before the area was identified that they were involved with that decision so you know the the letter of intent the letter of intent is very different from the grant oh i understand okay i i i my question has been very simple i'm just trying to understand i mean we've got all kinds of different comments have you said that you talked to thc on friday and they said well we want to make sure that it's an area that we're willing to fund all right so to me that means that the letter of intent probably should have an area listed on it that they're willing to fund well you know even as richard pointed out the letter of intent turns out that it's not even a requirement so i was just trying to follow the direction provided by thc yeah i mean it's their process i'm not faulting anybody for sending in a letter of intent i mean i don't know whether it's required or not quite frankly i didn't need to take y'all's word for it i'm going to take your word for it uh all right council member armater yeah so um just so just to clarify with staff uh this whole process uh the the the letter of intent um cost the city nothing correct and the city has no no no legal obligation correct well i think it was directed to staff well does staff agree with that because that's my understanding obviously it's mr hunt's understanding that is that is correct and what we were trying to have what we were trying to have identified on that letter of intent was the area to be surveyed again based upon input from the work session as to where where is this what area is going to be designated what what are we looking at um and then we did that follow-up with with the thc that was provided in the packet yeah uh you know to me um you know this feels like we've got uh an independent entity uh that is going through a process uh with a state entity that's been a designated by the federal government to handle this kind of thing you know it's a national district and there this is the very preliminary preliminary first stage in the process that as far as i'm concerned you know city council shouldn't even you know be involved in this i'm kind of surprised that we're even here discussing this uh so i feel to me it feels uh just just odd that we are asking an applicant to explain a process that's not even his process i would encourage everybody to do what i did and just reach out to the texas historical commission if we have any questions but we're kind of we're putting we're we're asking the applicant all these questions and he's going through the process for the first time he's hearing things from texas historical commission but as far as i'm concerned this it's really not our our business uh and we we should just be aware that this is happening and we and we should step back uh so i feel like there have been obstacles uh that have been placed and and in the way in the process and i'm i'm i'm very conscious that you know the public is watching right now and wondering what's going on here uh so anyway i just will kind of want us to be mindful of that and just to make it be known that that uh i i don't like the uh what what i've seen so far about this process i'm hoping we can just let him go on his way and get a historical dent and go on their way and it is up to the the state agency to decide whatever they decide it's their process councilmember armator but what you fail to mention is part of that process is requiring something from the city of denton okay so councilmember davis you've got the floor no mayor that's that's exactly where i'm going i i think it's unfortunate this relationship has has seemed to have soured i'm not sure and hopefully some someone on staff can elucidate why uh why this letter is necessary if it's not mandatory but the the simple fact is and i'm saying this as someone who supports the creation of these national register districts and supports historic denton doing this work i want them to apply for this grant i want them to do it with our blessing i i what i don't understand is when something is requested of the city of denton we as the representative body of the city of denton get to ask questions we get to know every it doesn't matter if it's if the applicant feels it's necessary or not it frankly doesn't matter if thc thinks it's necessary or not we get to ask the questions and when our city auditor wants to know further information we get to ask those questions as well if we whether we find the letter intent or not there is a second step to this process you know we're kind of all huffing and puffing today about this step the rubber meets the road with the grant application and this body would have to approve that grant application so my hope would be that we can all take a step back and repair the relationship some before a grant application is forthcoming and if if please if someone could explain to me why we're here agonizing over a letter of intent if it's not necessary to the process what the purpose and that's a that's a question for staff i'll try to answer it as simply as possible it's simply it's it's what the historic denton inc requested that that we signed the letter of intent all we were simply wanting to do is is provide that area specifically that he wanted to survey um you know i included that trying to hide what what or make it a secret of what we asked thc i mean i was pretty straightforward in the request if you look at the exhibit um and just stated the stated purpose of the grant would be to complete a new historical survey selected and approved by thc and then their response back was that is that is not something that they would they would consider funding and it's not up to them to decide the the survey area we indicated back on i think on the 17th to to historic denton inc letting them know we would have a hard time supporting it without a specified area and even requested that knowing that there were four or five areas that that he was initially looking at from 2018 is it one of those areas and and they did not want to provide that so this is nothing that staff is trying to to slow walk or be difficult um it's quite the contrary okay yeah new information uh yes sir since there's not a historic preservation officer at the city and since the city has been out of compliance as a clg entity with thc since 2018 thc suggested that i send this to the city manager that's how this process began okay all right i appreciate that um council member davis did you have a follow-up now i've got a couple of other council members that want to comment now i'm going to let other other folks speak i might have something on the tail end but um we'll hear from others okay council member melzer yeah just to bottom line it this is an organization that uh has a successful track record of working with the thc you know a heck of a lot more about that dance than anybody currently in the city uh and you know this is asking nothing of us and i'm going to move approval nothing of us other than are acknowledging our awareness of it uh you know by signing the letter of intent so i'm i move approval so this is what's really interesting to me i'm hearing that that there's this knowledge of this process and then but i'm also hearing that we don't even have to have this letter of intent in other words this conversation doesn't even have to exist but that it was requested of us so i get confused when i hear that there's all this knowledge of a process but then i hear for the first time that a letter of intent is not even requested from everybody and that it's not it's not even needed so i really take umbrage with this sense of people saying that staff has slow walked that that's absolutely not that's absolutely not true we've been asked to do something like council member davis we have a right to ask questions this was all on the track to go forward and then all of a sudden things changed we got a new letter of intent which isn't even required and now we're hearing about it for the first time i don't think richard nor i knew that this was not required mr hunt this is my whole point i'm hearing all these people say everybody's so smart in this area and you're criticizing us for not having a a historic preservation officer and therefore but now we're all council member barmiter stop i can express myself the way i want to so i'm just simply saying everybody's throwing accusations around but i think what not what i'm hearing is we all are learning new information well go figure so why don't we work with the new information we have so am i hearing that we do not even need to have this agenda item am i hearing that we don't even need to have to approve a letter of intent can somebody just answer that question because if we don't have to why are we even going to continue this discussion mayor i'm pulling up the exact language from from the uh from the grant and we do have a motion on the table um council member barmiter i second okay we got a motion and a second council member rigs you have a comment well my comment was a question such as you had about the letter of intent i wanted to ask the caller that if this letter did not get approved by council if the project for the historic didn't for the survey area to um preserve those homes would be dead like does this letter kill that project to help preserve that neighborhood it does not kill a project it was just that thc has had a very successful relationship with historic denton we have a great track record they wanted to help fund some stuff and we've never received funding from the city okay so the question is if this let's say if we just said a letter of intent is not required based upon your representation uh from the thc so if you don't receive a letter of intent you can still apply for the grant and the lack of a letter of intent does not in any way jeopardize that grant if it's not required or am i wrong in that that is what we learned on friday okay all right so we don't we don't need to have a letter of intent is that is that what i'm understanding that we i think richard and i learned of that process of the thc collectively on friday is that correct richard it is on their on their website under um if you go under texas historic commission projects program certified local government clg grant and then under the tab apply for a clg grant letter of intent due september 30th and then in in parens recommended but not required okay all right okay council member uh council member briggs yeah just to follow up my question does the applicant want to go on with the um with a letter of intent from the the council knowing this information it was suggested that we try this approach just to see if we can get support from the city prior to going into all the work to create the grant because if we weren't going to get support you know next month then why go to all the efforts and expense to do this so that was what the original idea was that to answer your question we don't need the letter of intent so it's fine to drop it council well we've got a motion in a second uh so that we've got to we're going to take a vote on unless somebody withdraws their motion uh council member ryan you haven't spoken yeah thank you mayor i guess my question is is what the motion to uh approve the um letter of intent which letter of intent because we had the initial one then he changed it and from what i'm understanding we received another one on saturday that we haven't even seen is that correct richard or was it something else yeah it was just the area that he had provided um he i don't believe we got a new letter of intent specifying that area i think i think the issue is the ordinance does not the way the ordinance was prepared was based upon the last letter of intent um so it does not have a specified area in the ordinance as as presented but but we don't have a letter of intent with the specified area we do not okay yeah i'm going to have a hard time supporting it at this point if based on the the letter that was in our backup from uh thc okay uh council member melzer yeah i just want to underscore what we heard uh richard reed which is recommended but not required is it required no is it recommended yes so i want to support this effort and provide what's recommended and i'm not withdrawing the motion okay uh council member davis i want to echo in part what council member ryan just said and then also express my disappointment with the process thus far um i think staff has done the right things i think staff has only done what council has asked them to do if there's going to be a grant application in the future i hope this uh this relationship can be repaired and to to claim that there will not be a relationship between the city and historic denton by dent of historic denton making application for this grant funding that that's just a little disingenuous there will be a relationship there there has to be a relationship there the legal nature of it is is really of no no import if we have to approve the grant application there is a relationship in existence i'm going to be uh voting in support of the motion and the reason why is because i think that this is not a foregone relationship i think it can be fixed i think we can all act in a civil way moving forward and we have a whole grant application process to get through together um so i i hope that we can all be very forthcoming with each other and uh and i'll be voting in support of the motion unless todd who looks like he wants to say something has something groundbreaking to say well i think what we're trying to figure out is whether or not we actually have to sign the grant application so uh we're we're looking at that right now but i still don't think there's i think we still have time to do this right and i appreciate your comments um you know just in terms of the the staff you know i i am not happy about hearing that staff pushed too far whatever i think that's out of line we had a you know a work session on this we were given very specific direction very specific questions we brought a very specific project to you and as that information continued to change you know i i would not let staff come in with a project that that was different than what you had been expecting and we are not going to just set aside the majority of your direction um you know when we have a petitioner that doesn't want to follow the the directions that's just not why we're here and so i i don't appreciate the words about richard early on and he's done the right thing and i i do think there i don't think the relationship's off the rails to to your point council member davis i don't understand where the relationship is right now it's strange to me i think that if we move this back a meeting we can sit down with him ask exactly what the grant is he's applying for exactly what the area is and frame it differently and get this proper support there is no relationship that's off the rails here from our perspective we have a staff member that's trying to do homework for you and to come back in here tonight and hear that we're disappointed in where things are is really disappointing to me because he has busted his hump trying to get you the information you directed us to get so from my perspective we've got another meeting we can come back we're happy to reach out to mr hunt we're happy to bring this thing back and we're happy to do whatever it takes to to make sure you have the proper documentation and you know what you're voting on but i i just think that's where we are i wanted it to be said and i did not want richard taking any heat for this because he's simply doing the bidding you asked him to do yeah i understand absolutely uh council mayor pro tem yeah i and while randy's on the line i i want to say this very succinctly i mean i support the project i'm gonna say i'm gonna um move to postpone but i just want to be clear here uh you randy you don't get to decide if you've watched the meeting and discern what staff is asking is accurate there's emails that fly back and forth after the meeting there's phone calls there's no way for you to discern that this is exactly what the city council has asked for and then make a decision counter to staff that's empowered to get the things we need to make decisions if you're going to but you have every right to do so but then don't i would just say don't expect me to support you in that i'm going to support staff and their ask and getting things done and i find it very difficult to understand how this is somehow overreach when one when this body asks the staff to research uh the entity of every corporation that comes to the city and ask for something we they have to go to the secretary of state and pull up every entity that ever comes before the city and then somehow you take issue with us asking you to do the same thing that everyone else has to do so i just i just ask you um to not make it difficult to support you because if i have to choose between your project and the work we ask staff to do that's an easy choice for me i i'd hate to be there but it's just you don't if you're asking for the city to do something you don't get to tell the city what to do you have to then uh work with us and that's a slow arduous process and when people try to come to the city i tell them don't do it it's a pain in the neck uh so i get it that it's it's it's onerous i get it that it's difficult i get it that it turns slow i get it that you don't think you should have to do some things but uh ultimately i'm telling you that's an easy decision for me if it comes to one or the other and and i'm trying to tell you staff has a research every company that comes to the city per a council member's request and so you're not unique in this um and if you don't like that then i get it but that's that's the price of doing business here as this this body's decided i don't agree with it either but one of but that's that's been the ask and that's been made done that's done so uh i'm gonna move for and and let me get it on the record matt can you speak to that if we don't have the accurate of the most recent document that we're going to there's a motion for a document that i understand to be not the most recent recent document and not the document that would be put in action uh so i guess my legal question is are we okay there if we are then i'm going to move to postpone if we have an issue with the document then let's let's address that yeah i'm going to turn this over to cynthia kirkoff from our city attorney's office to answer it there i am good evening good evening members of the mayor members of the council if i understand your your question uh mayor pro tem you're asking whether or not we can um act on the email that mr hunt sent to richard on friday night that is different that was than what was posted to the agenda that is correct so it's different it's different than what was posted it doesn't provide notice to the public as to what the council would be acting on that's my understanding but i don't want to i don't want to speak out of turn so i'll allow staff to to answer that succinctly yeah correct so that's that's different that's outside of posting so it would be um my uh recommendation that you you can't you can't act on that item we're still uncertain on as to what survey area he's requesting approval of with the letter of intent okay well then i will i will yield to uh the movement and and see if they're going to um adhere to uh legal's advice or if they're going to ignore it and then i'll just get back on the floor to uh postpone if are you withdrawing your motion to postpone well i've not i've not yes i want to see if the movement is going to adhere to the um legal's advice if they're not then i we're still in discussion and i'll just get right back in line so what are you so what are you asking them what are you asking council member melzer i'm asking council member melzer if he's going to adhere to legal's advice uh that the the guidance they just gave us but with all due respect the advice doesn't seem to track the conversation we just heard uh because we just heard that the letter uh uh would not include a specific area that that would be determined later so it's kind of like uh almost like catch 22 kind of language so it's not it's not intended to have a survey attached to it so i don't understand how i don't understand how that legal advice makes sense well my understanding is the letter we have mentions mentions an area or no no not not the one that's in the back up and then we were provided an area that's right from the applicant okay got it well that that's what i just heard just now is the opposite sequence of what i heard before we were provided an area and then that was removed based on conversations the applicant had with thc suggesting that they not specify an area so i don't understand why no no council member melzer the applicant has sent another letter of intent with a specified area friday after this posting after this agenda was posted with a letter of intent that did not have an area this is what all the confusion is about the first letter of intent had an area the second one submitted did not have an area but then we just heard from mr hunt that he called thc on friday and got confirmation that it probably would be best if there was an area on that letter of intent so he added one i think it was the same one in our first letter of intent is that correct was it the same area are you asking me yes if you know the answer to that i did not provide a third letter of intent there are two that are in your backup material that are part of the agenda it was thc that said if staff has this level of concern about the area go ahead and tell them to go ahead and consider the agreed area that we made back in 2018 so that's the email that you sent and that's the that's the new information from friday because my understanding was that your conversation with thc you wanted to so you do not want to add an area to the letter of intent i wasn't trying to change the letter of intent so i i did not you know create a third one what i provided to staff was what that area could be so that there's transparency if if if we vote yes in a moment on signing a letter of intent i'm not even sure i'm asking what would that letter of intent be and is it the one that the applicant wants it to be but i think that's an that's a question for the applicant the letter of intent would be the one we have in our backup right now that is part of this agenda item which does not have an area and so then the question of is that the one that the applicant wants well that's only mr hunt can answer that okay then the answer is that the exhibit seven revised letter of intent is the one that is preferred between the two that are in your backup material the letter of intent is just that and the actual area is going to be defined in the grant application okay so then then my question goes back to legal given what you've just heard do you still have the point of view that it's impossible for us to act if in fact the letter that the applicant prefers us to have is in our backup that's a question for legal yeah did legal hear the question i i did and we're waiting on the response okay mayor can i add to that research they're going to do well i well i don't know if anybody's doing any research they're just asking council member melzer just asked a question councilman council member melzer can you repeat that question please okay so first to frame it a bit uh we we just heard from the applicant that i think it's letter seven b that's in our backup is the letter that the applicant would uh would like us to move forward on and uh you opined a moment ago that it was impossible for us to act um uh but do you still feel it's impossible to act knowing that you've heard from the applicant that the letter that he prefers is in our backup the letter in the backup is consistent with posting for the agenda so you can vote on it that the staff recommended denial of the letter of intent because there was no area identified on that um letter intent that was submitted by mr hunt or historic denton okay so i'm perfectly willing to to respond to mayor partem's question uh i i'm not going against legal advice i am disagreeing with the staff recommendation which you know we have the uh the right to do and basically i'm uh i'm going on the the track record of historic denton and sort of this uh dance that that they you know i've gone through several times before with historic dent so so my uh my motion stands okay i think it's the vote at some point council member uh hudspeth i mean mayor partem hudspeth thank you yeah so question for legal last time so there's there's two letters of intent in our backup simple question does that matter there's exhibit three and there's exhibit seven so they're both posted and i think that's what council member ryan was alluding to just want to make sure legal says that doesn't matter so you can just post cumulative documents and pick which one you want the night of i may be able to clarify that all that the reason the two letters are in there i was simply showing what was what was submitted on the 15th when i asked for the clarification as i was preparing on the 15th um that's when mr hunnett indicated that um when i asked which neighborhood um he had indicated it was neither and so that was why that that that's why it was that's why it was pushed to tonight again because it was different than what was that than what was posted so the so the letter that was included the old letter it was just there for informational purposes the new letter is what the ordinance was prepared on perfect thank you council member moutzer and i i would just comment that routinely we're presented with a multiplicity of options and and you know we can we can select and to to clarify my motion is for moving forward on the letter in exhibit seven okay mayor pro tem before he gets a second on that clarification i'm going to move uh that we postpone okay is there a second on the motion to postpone is there a second on the motion to postpone all right uh the motion dies for a lack of a second all right council member melser you um you made a motion to to approve who seconded that motion council member armature so uh so i'm gonna say i'm gonna i'm gonna support this reluctantly i don't believe that there's a relationship that's gone off the rails i hope we all learn lessons in this i agree with council member davis this council has a duty and an obligation and the right to ask questions of anybody that's asking something from the city now i would hope that when people get asked for information from the city they give it forthrightly they give it willingly they give it accurately i think i hope that we learn from this because i don't believe that this is going to harm a relationship but we certainly better understand that we don't want to get in this place again and there's there's enough kind of uh i mean staff simply did what they were asked to do period even to the point where mr hunt who's been doing this for three or four years or five years or ten years or however long he's been doing it learn something new about this process and so i don't think learning something new about this process should therefore be laid at the feet of staff when we're not the experts so i i just hope that moving forward that if council asks questions that they're just simply answered i've seen the emails i've seen the emails so let's move because this is a move because if the relationship doesn't get repaired then when the grant application comes forward i hope we can bring it forward with a little bit more professionalism and the things in this area that will keep us from going down this path of this kind of acrimony because it's important that we preserve areas in the city of denton historic denton does important work we just need to figure out how to just do this process professionally that's all so we've got a motion and a second there's no more discussion council member melzer how say you mayor just to clarify we're talking about the revised letter of intent which is exhibit seven is that correct yes correct that's it yeah that's the only one that's moved forward the other one is for reference only yep is for just comparison council member melzer aye council member armater yes council member ryan very uh council member briggs yes council member davis aye council member mayor pro tem hudspeth uh i'm gonna echo what i said before but i hope again when the grant rolls around that we don't have this um same issue aye mayor watts is an eye on the motion carries six to one let's take a five minute break welcome everybody back to this meeting in the denton city council sept 20 september 22nd 2020 it is 10 38 p.m we're moving out to our budgeted items for individual consideration yes budget items for individual consideration all right agenda item 3a consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas adopting the fiscal year 2021 annual program of services budget and the capital improvement program of the city of denton texas and that's id 21 547 good evening again david gaines direct uh assistant city manager oh and let me uh let me just read this right quick before we start for this item we had four people making comments on our online form zero in support four against we had one person call the 349 78 100 registered and against and we will have one speaker that we will uh call on after we've had staff presentation and uh any council questions i'm sorry david go ahead here's a question council member yeah if we could just ask i didn't really notice this until now is there a difference between item a and item d i mean there's a few words different but it looks like substantively the exact same thing sure yeah item d is just a requirement that we have to ratify the budget after we have our budget our tax rate whenever you bring in more tax revenue you have to ratify you have to agree to that that you agreed yeah you have to approve that you approved it's a requirement every year that we have to okay it's a requirement that i get sorry thanks okay all right david now you can start yeah well this is this is obviously been a long budget process um and this presentation is is fairly brief just a high level of review of our discussions that we've had over the past six months but obviously we are available for questions um if there's any more detailed questions along the way i do want to take this time to to thank all the city staff uh for for giving us to this point of budget adoption and also thank council for um the the numerous discussions that we've had over the the past six months so here's a very brief summary of the of the slides to come and i've uh added this slide from that wasn't included in the in the backup just to to highlight the process that we've had up to this point um obviously started six months ago as we began our cost reduction strategies related to to coven 19 as we anticipated the revenue uh shortfalls and implemented our costs those cost reduction strategies indicated there and then we had our number of of updates leading up to our department presentations where each department came forward and gave a detailed budget budget presentation which led to our budget workshop on august 6th and then our subsequent meetings as follow-up to that budget workshop so this is the the table that we've used throughout the budget process to to highlight some of those priorities in the budget itself uh we submitted a baseline budget which really was an offshoot of those cost reduction strategies to go into the year not only with a reduced number of of fte's and and reduced costs but without those supplement without significant supplemental increases that we've that we've considered in prior budget years we've obviously you are earlier in this meeting you uh reduced the utility rates for water and solid waste services we are increasing our transfer to the street maintenance fund by five hundred and seventy thousand dollars in this budget for public safety we're adding nine and a half fte's to the public safety budget we are continuing our homelessness initiatives and increasing the funding toward the homelessness initiatives that we really began in earnest last year and then prioritizing our bond program as we have planned issuance of over 55 million for the 2019 bond program that was approved by the voters last november so our tax rate uh obviously we it's been a long discussion and we don't have to to rehash our our process with the appraisal district as we've had numerous conversations with council to this point but did get our certified values last week and really got those updated numbers during our council meeting last tuesday and after after everything really actually ended up the ended up the process right at what our our our proposed budget assumed for assessed values so um feel good about where we are with those assessed values and moving forward with the proposed tax rate that was in the budget which is our current tax rate of the 59 cents and you can see that's below the no new revenue rate and obviously below the voter approval rate by a number of cents for each and in that tax rate while it's the same total tax rate we are shifting a half cent from this from operations to the debt service rate to to service those they are closing up the fy 14 bond program and our first issuance for the fy 19 bond program the general fund revenues that again a very high level of ad valorem tax makes up about about 40 of our total in the general fund and sales sales tax about 30 again we've had those detailed conversations about sales tax and took a conservative approach in the march april time frame of what those would look like and they have come in stronger than that so our our budget has been has been updated to reflect that both in the fy 20 estimate and the fy 21 budget while we still take a cautious approach as we move forward with those sales tax sales tax projections you can see our roi from the utilities obviously we have had the discussion of that increase that we've had for dme for the roi from dme just for the next two years and then you can see our other revenue sources there from fees to franchise fees to our cost of service from the other the other funds throughout the city expenses in the general fund it's about 70 percent of our our expenses are personnel services again consistent through every budget that we bring forward it always ends up about 70 percent of our total budget is personnel we have our cost of service for our internal service funds and then just our other operations cost and then you can see the others there from miscellaneous down to materials and supplies so in total that was just the general fund if you step back and look at our total budget that's a about a 1.34 billion dollar budget and you can see that the utilities in total make up about 30 percent of that obviously dme being the largest portion general fund of what we just detailed is about 11 percent of our total budget and then our capital improvement program obviously this is all of our new program new projects coming on board and those projects that are are being closed out or continuing make up about 41 percent of that total budget here's a highlight here's a summary of our new issuance our new debt issuance heading into the next fiscal year for those capital programs so i don't have to go down the entire list but you can see especially on the general government side that we're really getting getting into stride with our 2019 program as i mentioned earlier and the largest piece of that is that police the police facility projects and again one of the things that we accomplished this past year was a commercial paper program which allows us to issue that debt as we actually incur the expenses and that's what we're expecting as we really look to close out that police police facility project not long after the the fy22 budget year begins and then you can see our internal service fund projects we've discussed the fleet expansion and the 311 system and then each of our utilities debt which which we went into in detail in those presentations so here's a very a very high level fte summary that we've again reviewed but i think this really highlights those cost reduction strategies and the the voluntary separation program that we acted enacted early in the summer along with our hiring freeze and in total we've we've reduced what we initially reduced our fte count by 86 positions across the organization heading into our formal budget process through the budget process we've also increased our our total positions 21 and really largely for public safety now eight of those positions are also for the public safety communications conversation that we've had where we're taking on the service to a little while which obviously has an offsetting revenue associated with it so here's a charts and we have similar information on the next presentation as we look at the tax rate in more detail of where we've consistently come back and said here's what the average taxable value looks like based on the reports that we get from the appraisal district and here's what a tax rate would look like for someone at the the average taxable value i think it's always important to note here as we look at the average taxable value that is really separate from our conversation of the no new revenue tax rate as that includes new value coming in so and obviously you have a number of residents that are below that and some that are above that as well so but it's always a good benchmark and something that we've that we've put forward each year and then you can see that so if you were at that average on on your rate you would have that increase of the $44 tax rate in tax bill increase for the for the year and then you can see the same for the utility bill of $24 decrease you know this is something that we that we have again shown but i think it really tells a story on the utility rates obviously we're again reducing our utility rates for both water and solid waste this year and as you step back and you look at the past four years i don't know that there's many other cities in in the state that can say that they've reduced rates each year across their utilities and you can see really the the change of philosophy how we've had a lot of those those initiatives that we talked with council about of looking at our capital program what do we have sitting in capital projects how what is our best use for reserves how can we make efficiencies in each of those utilities which has really led to that sharp difference you see as we've really focused on reducing those utility rates so definitely something we're proud of and want to and want to have out there and make transparent in how we've how we dealt with our utility rates so again that's it from a very very high level and we um and can certainly answer any any questions that council has sorry about that councilmember melser i was on mute councilmember melser thanks yeah david i just want to um you know unpack this a little bit more uh particularly slide 10 for the benefit of the public so a lot of us um slide 10 talks about the the average taxable value which includes and you said this new properties that that end up going into a new average but if we're voting for a tax rate that is below the no new revenue tax rate the average of pre-existing homes that have not been uh improved should result uh in a tax decrease can you sort of am i is it is everything i said so far been correct and can you help you know well you explain because i because i don't think you know many of us believe we're voting for a tax increase which is sort of looks like on slide 10 right no you're right i mean i can't i can't say 100 just because we don't have that number from the appraisal district the only the only reason that's the number that we've always used especially over the past number years is that's the only number that we get from the appraisal district um i think there's there would be more appropriate metrics to use for that comparison you're pointing to we just don't have that number right now but um yeah okay so um but councilmember melser i think that your that your observation is correct in that the state has prescribed a formula for quote unquote a no new tax rate formula it used to be the effective rate but now it's the no new tax rate formula is that correct david correct yeah which is slightly clearer language yes yes uh and that that formula then is is uh calculated i think by the appraisal districts um is that correct david denny county actually calculates that's what yeah denny county or denny county appraisal district county just the county itself okay so denny county i'm sorry excuse me denny county calculates that and that rate is supposed to represent that the city is not collecting uh any more taxes property taxes than it was the year before excluding the additional uh collection of those representing new value is that correct david yes okay so yeah so yes i mean if you had no new construction if you had no new value and that was zero then most likely based upon an average the city would be collecting less taxes than it did the year before based upon uh you know that's what that rate is supposed to represent so i think it's safe to say that when you're below the no new tax rate and you're excluding uh you know because me as a property owner i don't care whether there's new construction i'm just looking at my tax bill if my appraisal stays the same or goes up just a little below the average then i'm going to have pay less taxes because the tax rate is lower to match that so i think that's a good observation and sometimes the state has made it a little bit more complicated but we just can say we are below the no new tax rate as calculated by the county based upon the state formula okay good all right if i can just press a little further sure i uh and i also note that it seems to me like when i first started paying attention to city government that our general fund is about 100 million and i think it's recently been 120 million so seeing it at 140 million knowing how much um you know just really uh squeezing uh you know and re-engineering uh city management has done you know and my impression that we've been you know really uh not like on an austerity level but but just you know really watching the pennies uh it's surprising to me that if my impression is correct that the general fund is so much greater than it was so is that all from growth so are you right that it's like on 100 million 240 million in just a few years i can definitely get prior years just f y f y 20 the current budget year we're 136 million in the budget so this year 139 million in the budget so um go back a couple of years i don't know if you have that handy we can definitely get it i don't have it right in front of me yeah i don't think it's going to be 120 million i mean not a couple years back it's yeah the i think you're thinking a little bit further back because we we definitely have not gone up that much okay time flies all right yes it does tod do you look like you want to say something well i think the increased cash funding especially into the street funds and quite frankly with two-thirds of your budget being personnel costs just the the basic costs of health insurance those sorts of things they go up two three four percent a year so even with reducing headcount you're still seeing those kind of increases each year so the the the the new valuation from the the properties that are coming on generally is paying to for that staffing and for those transfers into our road fund which are our big cost drivers at this point yeah of course all right thank you well and and i will say i i would challenge to find any city that's a full-service city that provides all the utilities that we do full service and and see if their tax rates are below the no new tax rate and have they been consistently with the effective rate which we have been except for maybe one year where we added a cent i think to the debt service or something like that over the over the year so i it's i mean we've hats off to staff and to council because we we go through these difficult budget discussions and decisions but i think it's been a great team effort in the the city staff financial staff and city manager's office i mean we we've got to give our hats off to them that they've really helped us maintain quality services that our citizens deserve while also making sure that they keep as much of their hard-earned tax dollars as they can so i appreciate that yeah i have an answer for that okay four years ago fy 18 we're at 120 million okay so 120 was the correct memory yeah yeah i'll just add just one last little comment that i i i sent a note to the city manager earlier in our meeting that said is it just me or has staff aged about five years in the last five months and he agreed with that but that you know i mean that's that what i see is people like david and others who have you know under this you know creative reengineering under you know tight pressures uh people have just taken on bigger and bigger responsibilities and are rising to them and it does make them seem kind of older mayor pro tem you had a question or comment uh i want to echo um the the sentiments and i i reflect back to uh the city manager finalist interviews uh there at the uh patterson there and and really that was what uh city manager howman said he was committed to was coming in and being fiscally responsible and he's done nothing but uh continue to do that and the staff around him so again want to thank him and his staff uh and everyone that kind of plays a role and then david my question for you is can you spotlight i know the city manager's done it through this process but for those watching i do want to do it again just can you spotlight the especially when you're talking about the utility funds etc so obviously the put-or-pay agreements was were a big part in making sure we were on solid ground financially and and able to to uh make some uh provide some savings but what else kind of what would a larger kind of decisions that really helped us uh be in such a good position on the utility side i think especially as you look at that chart and you see what we were four years ago we had a we had a lot of money out in capital projects that were cash funded that or or even debt funded but they were out that were sitting there in the projects either weren't getting done or could be reprioritized or weren't necessary so that that's a large component of that was really reassessing our capital program um obviously we did that on the general government side but especially on the utility side and then also just looking at what what is really needed on our reserves um how does it tie to um what are what our policies are for reserves um and do we need what's the best use for those funds is it do we need those in reserves or are they better to give rate relief so i would say those in conjunction were the biggest biggest pieces but also we've done a number of efficiencies and and change organizational structure i think you can see that obviously with solid waste and a number of the utility so i think all those play a part but the capital program definitely is a large piece of that okay great thank you we do have a uh uh public speaker uh someone wants to comment so we're going to take the public comment at this time and we will uh wait for the caller to get on the line caller you on the line you on the line caller hello yes yes okay yes you're on with the denton city council on september 22nd 2020 for our budget item agenda item 3a uh you're on the public comment portion once you state your name and address i'll start your time and you'll have four minutes and you can begin at any time sure thank you um my name is sam escalante my zip code is 76209 um good evening city council uh i have a brief prepared statement but first i want to clarify that i'm bringing up an issue that i would appreciate some clarification on just in case i'm incorrect my statement includes the topic of the police's inclusion in the human services budget which i gathered from this past friday's staff report i did not know that for instance that the new mental health unit was considered under this budget and not the police's so if i'm wrong my understanding based on the staff report let me know and then second i just wanted to purpose that i believe that the budget is a city's moral document i hope you would all agree and i hope that you'll keep that in mind uh you shape the budget in a way that you know communicates to everyone that didn't care about everyone um especially those who are the most vulnerable especially in light of all the recent events that have brought to the uh that have brought long-term issues to light so i was one of the thousands who filled the streets this summer in honor of the movement for black lives in light of everything going on with this movement i think that the council has a really great opportunity to provide healing long-term healing and create a safer community for all of them tonight especially those who have been you know hit hardest by covid and those who have been you know victims of different inequities such as racial inequity and as i think we can all agree um the use of force committee was a good start but it's only a start and i think now council council can use their budget to set a course a long-term course for them that serves all especially the most vulnerable this is what thousands of us fill the streets demand so tonight i asked council not to approve the current proposed budget but specifically in doing so i asked that the council reconsider the following one that council set the proposed police budget at the same level as 2019-2020 two that council requests an additional one and a half million for community development to go directly clearly and transparently to assistance resources and programs that affect that most of me and three i asked the council request removing police from the human services budget including their budget for victims of child abuse and the mental health unit and in its place i think residents deserve a transparent and open seeking of alternatives to police for issues such as homelessness child abuse mental health among other issues so i believe these changes are practical and would go a long way toward providing healing to those who have suffered in these tough economic time and do various inequities addressing these inequities directly through the power of local government and using alternatives to police i believe is a public safety issue that is all thank you for your time thank you very much i appreciate it thank you caller i do not see any more calls council member armator oh yeah i just had a question for the caller if he's still there no i think he's uh oh go ahead okay yeah can you so i've got the um so you're requesting one and a half million uh for community development and um and can you repeat the part about uh casa oh read the part about what about casa or didn't you say about the casa budget um no i wasn't i wasn't specifically referencing uh that um uh i was uh i was referencing the human services budget that was um kind of expanded upon uh in the friday's um staff report and and the the items that included police okay god i don't know okay thank you all right thank you caller appreciate it thank you thank you all right you bet okay uh that that's the end of our callers uh is there any are there any questions on this agenda item council member melzer yeah i just uh not a question i just want to make some observations that you know we've been presented the budget over several weeks and in the most current budget proposal that was reviewed spending on uh social services generally was uh increased from last year from 1.6 million to a total of 5 million so much more than what has been suggested by by the caller and as far as uh police uh there's just some things that i think the public isn't necessarily aware of if they don't track this all the time but in what has been presented to us for uh for instance a lot of the uh public call was for a shifting of resources away from your uniformed sworn officers responding to every situation well and what's been presented to us in the coming year the expectation is that one out of eight calls uh nine more one calls will be responded to by a civilian uh and that includes mental health professionals and i think that's uh very forward thinking and and frankly was in the works in advance of the sort of outcry generally and nationally i think in general our police force has been ahead on a lot of things and and um much more of a of a progressive force that then uh that that enables a very productive conversation we can start off well into a well into a productive conversation so well i'll uh i'll stop there okay all right any other councilmembrometer yes i wanted to ask staff um and i'm not sure if if this would be finance you know or community development that i would ask about this um i think what the what the caller was asking about if i understand uh is something that i had a question about too um just about kind of what gets counted for what in in the budget um there was a uh friday report and i think that this is in the um numbers that councilmember melzer is citing when you talk about um you know expanding threefold it wasn't clear to me you know from the this friday report and from these numbers whether or not um the uh the mental health unit uh which i think is a wonderful you know step in the right direction as far as having the civilians and the relationship with the mhmr but it wasn't clear to me is that counting it from the police budget or the community development budget it was my understanding it was coming from the police budget uh but then in the friday report it was it was counted as or it seemed to be counted as community development spending so i just wanted to wanted clarification on that so in so it's coming from the police budget that that division was really a reallocation of some police position to this new group within the police budget uh the friday report reference was really just trying to lay out here's in total what we spend on human services across not only the general fund but other funds and within the general fund not only community development but also police and other initiatives that we have so that was the intent of that friday report kind of read it was across the city here's what's in this budget so um as far as where those that group is it's definitely in the police budget okay thank you so that's what i thought and i think i'm not sure councilmeltzer maybe that was a point of confusion i don't know but but the um so so that is coming out of the police budget and it's not um a part it's not part of the community development budget and same for and so the spending for for casa for instance is that is that coming from police or from human services or a combination of like cdp funds plus police budget just want just want a clarification on it since you're talking about casa or didn't children's denton county children's advocacy center because the advocacy center comes out of the police budget casa comes out of the human services community development yeah so maybe i'm conflating them because they both could they both um you know advocate for children right uh so okay so okay i see uh so the one from human services and the other from police budget okay that's correct is that that's correct yes okay thank you councilmember riggs and mayor pro tem oh i was just gonna uh say the clarification what i think that she was trying to say children's advocacy center not the not the other not court appointed special advocates okay uh uh mayor uh mayor pro tem i'll move approval all right we have a motion to approve uh do we have a second okay councilmember melzer a second if you don't mind i'll throw in another comment too sure yeah that also you know i hear a lot of comparisons made between the size of public safety budget versus uh you know grants that are made into social service organizations i don't know if everybody understands the city doesn't generally operate these social services i mean most most of that work is done by non-profits and then we make grants to them whereas public safety that's lock stock and barrel operated by the city so it's kind of apples and oranges when you compare the you know the amounts uh but i i do second all right uh councilmember amater oh yeah i would like to make a friendly amendment uh that uh we uh reduce the police budget uh by one and a half million and we allocate it to community development mayor pro chamber you accept that friendly amendment not at all okay all right so that friendly amendment fails if you're wanting to make that as an amendment to the budget you're certainly more than welcome to do that it just would require a second and then we'd have a separate vote i will make it as an amendment then all right uh could you restate your your amended motion your your amendment as a motion my my uh so i move uh to amend uh to uh pass the budget as as is minus uh one and a half million uh from the police budget uh to be added towards our community development budget okay we have a motion it's really an amendment uh with uh moving 1.5 million from the police budget to the human services uh i guess category we have a motion do i have a second i have a motion do i have a second councilmember melzer no um i'm not seconding uh i just want to comment on the motion that um we have an outside firm assess uh our police force and it's uh whether it's keeping up with the growth in our city where uh our crime statistics were shared auto theft up aggravated assault up sexual assault up if we don't you know there's it's simply a basic requirement of the city to keep up with that basic function of policing while doing more innovative more you know humanizing ways of delivering those services uh but uh i'm not interested in gambling with higher crime rates just uh low crime rates is that that's the best thing you can do for just quality of life for everyone so i don't support the amendment all right councilmember armatrout is that is that you asking to be recognized yes yeah i just wanted to respond to that don't need to debate it now i know everybody's everybody's tired um but i will say uh that i too do not want an increased crime rate i i i do too want um crime to be responded to so i have i i want to make sure that it's it's understood uh that i actually believe we should be reallocating within the the police budget um to to hire uh investigator and crime analyst so i i just just wanted to be known um that uh uh i i just think that what we need what what i am preferring doing is addressing the root causes of crime uh that come come from desperate circumstances in our community development department uh which is uh it does a great job but i do not think that they they uh meet uh their goals because they don't have the funding to do so and to help our non-profits do so so anyway as my little my my sure i appreciate that uh any it okay i need to we're going to move through this motion i've got a motion on the floor for an amendment is there a second to that amendment going once twice all right the motion the amendment fails for lack of a second council member briggs i would just like for staff to clarify last year's budget for human services community development compared to what it's going to be um going forward it's my understanding that it's increased from one point something million close to four over four million is that correct for the next year great if you if you kind of look at that isr or that was put out on friday that's really taking that broad view of the budget of how what are we dedicating toward um community services and that includes our loop 288 building obviously the human services budget the mental health division our cbdg funds that were that we're devoting so that was really taking that stepping back and taking that holistic view you do see that increase if you're referring specifically just to the hvu of human services and kind of that division you're not going to see that large increase it's really when you step back and you see that total then which that was the intent of that isr to really spell all that out as clearly as possible okay so the the holistic view what we're actually investing into the community right 5.4 million next year 5.4 yes yeah that increased a little over three million dollars okay and that includes the purchase of the building the renovation renovation yeah so it includes some of those covid grant monies and emergency search so look i mean this notion that somehow that the only thing that you can use as a metrics is the human services budget is misguided there's a lot of things that we do in the city year after year that provide assistance to those that need it so i mean this year it might be this kind of increase next year hopefully we don't have a pandemic and need all this additional influx of grant money so it may not be that high but it will still be an aggregate of not just those grant those community service grants and those health and human services grants but throughout the budget so okay so we got a motion on the for the budget for approval from mayor pro tem we've got a second from council member melzer i believe or do i have that reversed is that right that's correct okay uh any other discussion all right council member pro tem how say you all right council member melzer aye council member davis aye council member ryan aye council member briggs yes council member armature there's a lot that i love about this budget but i'm going to vote no okay thank you mayor watts is an item budget carries six to one we'll move on to our next agenda item which is 3b id 20-1545 considered option of the ordinance of the city of denton texas leveling to add levying excuse me the ad valorem property tax of the city of denton for the year 2020 at 0.590454 this should be a quick slide right david very very quick you've already seen all that you just saw all these slides okay both of them quick and it all ties to the budget that was just adopted really this is just the tax rate necessary to to meet that budget okay so again you just saw this slide that's our our proposed rate the about the rate for adoption which is below our no new revenue rate and then um this wasn't on the previous slide just so you can see that history of the rate and obviously you know really you can kind of you see that correlation with utility rates where kind of kept that same tax rate each year even as um assessed values increased and then as we had this focus on the effective rate on the no new revenue rate you see that decrease year over year and i do think it's important to point out as i mentioned earlier that we are shifting that half cent from operations to debt so we are you know on the operation side reducing that tax rate and still staying a little bit on your revenue rate okay that we just saw so that's it all right okay any questions mayor pro tem no i'm gonna if we don't have a call or anything i'm gonna move approval no there's no callers i move council member davis i'll second any questions mayor pro tem has say you on this motion all right uh council member davis aye council member brian aye council member melzer aye council member armature yes council member briggs yes uh mayor watts is an i agenda item id 20-1545 passes unanimously agenda item c id 20-1546 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving the 2020 tax rolls and providing an effective date the next two items are essentially procedural um just part of the budget process there's no no uh presentation and they tie to the items prior do you have what the certified tax roll is is it is it what the value is i can tell you right now total is 13.5 uh 13.5 billion okay essentially again right right what we put it almost exactly what we put in the proposed budget at that 85 assessed value so we'll take credit for for forecasting it did you say we'll take credit for forecasting okay okay good good all right council member davis hey man i'll give you credit i remember that day where we went over doomsday scenarios in the morning and then the magic wand got waved and everything was fixed by the afternoon so i move approval of uh david's magic uh council member ryan i will gladly second all right we've got a motion to second for id 20-1546 uh council member davis i'll say you aye council member ryan aye council member armature i'm sorry are we on are we on item d no item c okay okay um item c uh yes sorry okay all right council member briggs yes mayor protem council member melzer aye mayor watts is an aye motion carries seven zero agenda item d is considered adoption of the fiscal adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas ratifying the adoption of the fiscal year 2020-2021 um we do have a person who called in making comments using our online form for this agenda item uh zero in support but that one was against and so we're recording that all right uh chair would entertain motion on this count mayor protem move approval i guess i didn't ask your staff this is just ratifying what we just ratified agreed upon right yeah okay uh council member ryan i'll second we have a motion in a second uh council member mayor protem how say you all right council member ryan aye council member armature no council member briggs yes council member melzer council member davis aye mayor watts is an aye motion carries six to one for id 20-1548 we are now on concluding items any concluding items council mayor protem just just one i just want to say go stars go all right fantastic okay anything else no other concluding items we will stand and adjourned then at 11 23 p.m.